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 an Alternate Ending to The Customer You Are Trying To Reach..., a Rachel/Quinn story, originally posted on March 22 & 29 & April 5 2012.

This is a double shift day. There will be one more upload today: Possession.

"Say the Words"
Rachel/Quinn

Rachel stopped, caught her breath, which was quickly being spent. She found formulating some sort of response to be the hardest thing. The longer it took her to come up with words though, the easiest it was for memories to replay themselves in her mind, under the glare of a new light. Now she was starting to question what it was that had made her hold off the wedding. Yes, she wanted Quinn there, but time was running out, plans had been made… In the end Quinn's presence had mattered more than the actual marriage to Finn. She had taken precedence. Sure, they were friends now, but it was hardly the whole story.

She inhaled deep, still feeling Quinn's hand in both of her own. She didn't understand everything that was happening, not completely, but she couldn't deny things weren't as they had been on that morning. What had remained subconscious, unspoken, now stood on the edge of emerging.

"I… Are you thirsty, I can get you…" she started looking around, slightly frazzled.

"Rachel?" Quinn called her back. When she'd looked back at her, the blonde showed brief hesitation. "Will you stay with me? Please?" Rachel looked to her, quiet, but eventually she remembered herself and bowed her head, smiling to her.

"Of course," she promised her, even if part of her was thinking she should be getting out of there before… she had no idea what, only that she… She was still holding her hand, like she needed to convince herself that things would be alright, that Quinn would be alright, because if she wasn't, if she lost her, then…

The air rushed to her lungs and it was like she'd known all along, only now she understood. She whimpered, and she tried to hide, not let her see, but she was literally within arm's reach, and from her position Quinn would have seen her face anyway. "Hey… what's wrong?" she asked, but Rachel shook her head, fighting the approach of tears. "Rachel, it's okay, I'm…"

"I thought I'd lost you," she couldn't keep the words in, as hard as she'd tried, and when they went, the dam broke and out came the tears. "I-I thought you'd died a-and I'd never see you again…"

"No, but, hey, I'm here," Quinn promised, attacked with her own share of tears at seeing the other girl broken all of a sudden. She gave her hands a light tug with the hand they held, and Rachel almost had to kneel at her bedside so they would be at eye level. "Look at me," Quinn begged, but Rachel still kept her head down, not wanting her face to be seen. "Rachel, look at me," she insisted, and after a moment she made herself do it, eyes puffy with the tears she'd held in over the hours. Quinn did her best to move nearer, and Rachel fretted, not wanting her to hurt herself, but finally she stopped, looking back to the brunette. "I'm right here," she told her, looking to their joined hands. "You're never losing me, okay?"

"You're the one in the hospital bed and you're the one comforting me," Rachel shook her head in shame.

"You've done it enough times for me, I do kind of owe you," Quinn told her, and as hoped, she saw an accidental smile amid the tears. "Good," she smiled back. It wasn't even about what could and should be said anymore, and they weren't thinking about it anymore, only that they were both fragile in that moment, and they needed each other to remind themselves that they were strong, and stronger together. It wasn't acknowledged how much until Rachel just let out a breath and brought her lips to the hand she held. Quinn had closed her eyes, feeling like the emotions put into the gesture had infused into her.

As scared and disoriented as she'd been earlier, it had been having Rachel there that had made so she didn't lose it. Remembering that, remembering how she'd seen her again and again in her jumbled accident mind, and now feeling this, if there had been a transition, she didn't feel it, like maybe it had already happened long ago, like this was always who Rachel Berry had been to her. Her range of motion was limited by injury and pain, leaving her only the arm connected to the hand and the fingers which had felt the pressure of the other girl's lips.

She had done her best in folding her arm in, drawing Rachel's hands closer and, with that, beckoning her to come closer as well. With that, she could really look in her eyes. "Rachel, I meant what I said… before…" she started, and it proved a greater struggle than she would have anticipated. Rachel's response to this was to carefully brush back at some of the blonde's hair, which had been sliding closer to her face. It acted on Quinn in the same way as the touch to her hand had, and it put her back on track. "You're never losing me. Do you… Do you get what I'm saying?" she begged, looking back into her eyes.

Rachel had only needed a moment, but then her eyes had flickered, and she just smiled. It was hers, this smile, it was Quinn's, because she doubted that it had ever been elicited by anyone but the blonde lying before her. "You're right… I'm not going to lose you, because if I lose you, then… you lose me… and that's not happening either," she shook her head, blinking as she replayed the words in her head, to make sure she made any sort of sense, but seeing the look in Quinn's eyes, at least she had understood. "You're going to get better, Quinn. I know you will. I'll be right there to help you. And when you get out of here… you just wait. We've got our whole lives ahead of us, so much to see and do… you and me."

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!