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!

This is a double shift day. There will be one more upload today: The Fair Collaboration, chapter 8.

"Choirs & Legacies"
Nora, Emily, Grace & (future, new gen) New Directions
Sunshine Girls 2 series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

Stepping into that choir room for the first time as a full-fledged member of McKinley High's New Directions felt like she was in desperate need of being pinched. It was hard not to picture her own mother, at the age Nora herself now was, sitting in one of those chairs, or her stepfather, her father, and her stepmother, her uncles, aunts… Being here felt like being home with them; it just made sense.

"Take it down a notch," Emily had nudged her before they moved to take a seat.

"Right, I know, I know," she promised.

She didn't want anyone thinking she was being treated special, just because of who her parents were, even if she was possibly the greatest example of a New Directions legacy. She was already getting talk because of her stepmother being the Broadway star she was, but she dealt with it. The thought of being made to feel uncomfortable in this place, to the point where she wouldn't want to be there, was more important in this case.

"I wish Grace was here…" she couldn't keep from saying.

"She might change her mind about joining," Emily encouraged. Nora had asked her to audition with them, but even as she did she had expected her to say no. Her reasons were valid, with her parents' recent divorce, and her adjustment to all the changes in her life, but still Nora couldn't help but be sad at not having both her best friends with her, especially with the way she felt for the redhead…

"Maybe," she had looked to Emily.

"Once she sees how fun it is…" Emily went on, which made Nora smile.

"Yeah, could be."

There were eighteen of them in the club at the start of that year, many of them seniors, most of those seniors males, which meant in all likelihood the next year would find the club in something of a mismatched guy-to-girl ratio. Nora and Emily knew them all at least by sight, though as they would attend competitions and other performances of the Glee Club when they could, with their families, even before they'd been part of it, they could say they knew a lot of them by name as well. This was the first time they would get to interact with most of them. Others, for better or for worse, they were already familiar with.

"I heard you two were auditioning," they looked up to find Bailey Strong wheeling up to them.

"Yeah, what about it?" Emily frowned at her.

"For your sake, I hope growing up in the presence of the Rachel Berry has rubbed off on you, otherwise you better just walk off right now," she stared Nora down. "You can polish all you want though, you're not getting ahead of me," she warned.

"Okay, first off…" Emily had started to defend her, but Nora stopped her before she could start blabbing about her family.

"I'll do just fine, Bailey. And we'll see just who gets ahead," Nora stared her down, while the girl went off to the other side of the podium.

"Making friends already?" they were joined by Jay Buckler, and where Bailey had made them frown, he made them smile.

"Yeah, always," Nora told him as he sat behind them.

"What's he like? Schuester, the director…" he asked, leaning to them.

"Well…" Emily looked to Nora, wondering how much they were supposed to say, how much they could say without betraying their intimate knowledge of New Directions and its director and past members. "He looks like he knows what he's doing."

"He was a champion in his days," Nora provided.

"That's right, he was, there's that trophy in the hall," Emily nodded.

"Seriously?" they heard Bailey from across the room, and they looked up to see Francesca Saito step into the choir room. Seeing the guitar slung around her shoulder, Nora wished she had brought Harper, her own guitar, but she'd thought it would have looked too eager on the first day. Francesca clearly did not have that problem. She fixed Bailey with a stare as she passed, which made the blonde in the wheelchair go silent.

"I need to learn how to do that," Nora smirked to Emily and Jay.

"Glee Club, welcome!" Will had soon arrived, and he looked just as thrilled to be there as ever. The returning members greeted his arrival with cheers, while the new members joined in by example. "It is great to see so many of you again this year, some familiar faces, and some new faces. You know, I've been looking after the New Directions now for over fifteen years, and there's something rewarding and kind of overwhelming about seeing some of these new faces this year," he was explaining, and Nora swore she'd heard Emily mutter 'uh oh' under her breath. For her part, she was trying ever so discreetly to shake her head at Will, trying to get him to stop. "We have Emily Holt, whose aunt and uncle were with me from my first year as director," he indicated her, and she awkwardly raised her hand in a failed wave. "And then we have Nora Fabray, whose mother, father, stepmother, and stepfather were also in that first year, and part of the choir which brought us that first Nationals trophy right there," he pointed to the trophy case, which had been enlarged over the years to accommodate the growing collection. "I can only hope you, and everyone else, will take away as much as they did, being in this room," he smiled. "Now, let's get this started, everyone up."

"Don't tell him not to say anything, it'll be fine, why would he possibly bring it up?" Emily mimicked Nora's words from just days ago, and she sighed.

"That didn't last long, did it?" Nora frowned.

"I didn't know your parents were in Glee Club, too," Jay had spoken as they were getting up to stand with the others in the middle of the room.

"Yeah, all of them," Nora confirmed.

Before long, and mostly from Bailey, the complaints would begin, insisting that neither Nora nor Emily received this solo or that one, 'just because of who their parents are.' It had taken until they had managed to sing for them before some of those complaints died away, though Bailey sure wouldn't let it go. By now she was even more determined that Nora especially was someone who would try and get in her way.

They had left their first rehearsal at the very least with more happy anecdotes than bad ones. They knew that as soon as they'd get home they would have to answer to their parents, who were all ranging from amused, to nostalgic, to an emotional wreck at the prospect of them starting Glee Club. They would want to know how it had gone, and Nora and Emily would be more than happy to oblige. As much as being a New Directions legacy was something to keep quiet when they were in that choir room, at home it was a whole other story. At home, being part of New Directions made them special.

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!