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 68th cycle. Now cycle 69!
"Sun Won't Set"
Quinn, Rachel, Nora (AU!Beth), Quinn/Finn, Rachel/Puck
Sunshine Girls series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)
One year ago, Junior year
Quinn hated leaving Nora at daycare, mostly for how devastated her daughter looked every time she let her hand go. But more than that, she worried about her. She got along alright with the other children, but any one of them who'd gone to pick her up or drop her off at one time or another had been informed that, more often than not, she would finish an activity and then sit on her own. She wasn't making friends, and even though she was only a year old, they couldn't help but be concerned.
"Hey, you alright?" Tina had asked when she'd seen her drop in the chair next to her in Glee Club that day. Quinn had briefly explained the situation, and that'd been that.
But then the next morning, Tina had come up to declare she'd had an idea that might solve her problem. Her cousin had a daughter Nora's age.
"Maybe we could get them together, you know, like a play date. They might find it easier if it was just the two of them, not a room full of kids. I can relate," Tina smiled.
"That might be great, actually," Quinn smiled back. Tina motioned for her to hand her phone over.
"I'm putting in my cousin's name and number, just give her a call, I already asked her what she thought about it, and I think she's been having the same problem with her daughter, so it'd help her, too."
Quinn had gotten in touch with Talia Chang, and they had set up a first meet between Nora and Talia's daughter, Emily.
Putting the two girls together for the first time, the two mothers watched them almost like they were animals in the wild, the slightest noise threatening to frighten them away.
It had not been an instant connection. The two girls were as independent as could be, for the age they were at, and even with only one other child their age in the room, their attention was divided. By the end of their first play date, they thought it was progress enough that the two would sit side by side watching a cartoon show on television and react at the same parts. It would take three, four, five play dates before it started to become evident the girls were slowly but surely fusing as friends. Once they'd bonded, there was no tearing them apart.
X
Today, post-graduation
They didn't think Nora understood what was to happen, and that wasn't likely to change. She was only two years old. Her world revolved around her mothers and fathers, her grandparents, and her – one and only – best friend. Today in fact, having both Nora and Emily to look after, Quinn had called up Rachel and suggested they have a bit of a girls' day and head to the mall. Nora was very good at minding whichever of her parents' hand she was told to hold, just as she wouldn't let go of Emily's.
They had stopped at a small playground in the middle of the mall, letting the girls in and standing to watch them play. This would give Quinn and Rachel time to speak without small ears listening in. They knew any talk of leaving or separation had a way of catching Nora up and making her cry. But they needed to talk about it; they didn't have a choice. Soon it would be time for Quinn and Finn's wedding, and almost just as soon, they'd have the day where Rachel and Puck departed for New York. They had made up their mind to share custody of Nora, to have her in Lima and in New York, but this would mean more schedules, and a lot of commuting.
They couldn't just switch it out every week or even every other week. They needed to give Nora as much stability as they could, not to mention that it would mean money and time, whenever they had to get her from one city to the other and back. It wasn't like they would be completely cut off from one another. They could talk over the computer, actually see each other through a screen, but it was going to be hard.
Rachel and Puck would be the first to go without. Quinn and Finn would keep Nora while they went up to New York, settled in… So they had to make that decision: how long? More than a month felt like it would have been too much, and three weeks felt odd. Maybe a month would be best, that way they didn't even need to count or figure much of anything. That was true, for the most part.
They couldn't keep doing this, not forever. Eventually, Nora would need to go to school, and they couldn't just have her go to one school for a month and then another school for the next month. They kept telling themselves that it was still so far away, that they didn't have to think about it. But they were thinking about it. What it came down to was that, if everyone did what they should be doing, then Rachel and Puck would still be spending a lot of time in New York, and all of Nora's family, save for them, was in Lima. So when she came of age to go to school, she would have to stay with her mother and soon-to-be stepfather on a near permanent basis. Quinn had never seen her best friend so conflicted, like she might actually consider giving up everything she'd dreamed of, just so she could stay in Lima with her daughter.
But that was the future, still a few years away. The best she could do, the best they all could do, was to enjoy what they had, not think so much about a time still too far away to predict. So many things could happen between here and there. For now, Nora was two years old, and she and Emily Holt would run and play, laughing, while her mothers looked on the near future and pondered, and feared, and hoped.
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!