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 86th cycle. Now cycle 87!

IT'S THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY CYCLE OF GLEEKATHON! - Five years! Five years! *insert flailing* Okay, not quite, but by the end of this cycle, it will have been five years of daily stories (sometimes twice a day! ... and for seven very frightening days a couple years back, three times a day!). It will also be the end of this crazy ride. I started thinking about ending gleekathon months ago, and I wanted to finish my ongoing series before that happened. It made it so I could finish out this fifth year, and it couldn't be any better that this cycle is actually ending on October 22nd 2014, which was the day it began, in 2009... Now here we go!

This story is a 'Prequel or SEQUEL' for Here the Light, a Red series story originally posted on May 21st 2014.

"Flowers"
(Older) Rachel, Chloe (OC) & family
Red series

If she ever forgot the way she felt that night, standing with the cast of her first musical, on her first proper performance, as the audience erupted into cheers for her, she would feel she had truly lost one of the greatest moments of joy in her life. It wasn't so much about the applause, although it had been completely surreal and absolutely fantastic. It was the realization that… she'd made it. This had been her dream for so many years, and as determined as she'd been, she had never known for certain that it would actually happen… certainly not so early in her life. But it had, and this… this night right here… this was the beginning of everything. She had made it here, and she was not backing down, no… She was going forwards, onwards, upwards…

Her family and friends would be waiting for her with flowers, she knew, as soon as she was done here. Rachel had told her not to rush for their sake, that she should enjoy herself on this night, really take it in, so she did. She went back to her dressing room, shut the door, and she sat in front of the mirror, looking at herself. Only a few short hours ago she'd been sat here, so frightened that she was about to make such a fool of herself that she was near to hyperventilation, unable to stand. Rachel Berry, her mentor, had helped her pull herself together though, and Chloe was so glad that she did. She was just as glad that now, after the show, she was on her own for a moment… because she had a feeling any moment now she would burst into giggles, over what her life had actually become.

She was still just smiling, grinning from ear to ear, when there was a knock at the door. "Come in," she'd chuckled, turning around.

The man at the door was preceded by a large bouquet of flowers, and for a moment she'd thought it might be George, until he lowered the flowers and she saw his face. She froze, staring at him. If she couldn't feel the hours of performing in her body just now, she could have thought this was all some kind of dream. But it wasn't, and she stood from her chair, turning to face him.

"Hello… Chloe… You might not recognize me, I'm…"

"I know who you are. Peter Stenger. Once upon a time, you were my father." She had no interest in calling him Dad. As far as she was concerned, he had not earned the word. "I'm having a very good night right now, and I wish I could say that you showing up here just now would only make it better, but it doesn't. It really doesn't, and I hope you know that." He sighed.

"I do. I swear I do, I…"

"No. I don't want any excuses. You had your chance at getting me back. I looked for you, I ran away from home just to try and find you, because for some reason I thought I needed to do that just to know who I really was. I looked for you, and by some twist of fate, I ended up staying with the one person who could find you and get you to come see me. And then what did you do? You ran, like you weren't even there at all. I almost gave up on everything when I found out about that."

"I couldn't do it," he spoke before she could say anything more. "I saw you in that workshop, and I saw the… the beautiful young woman you became, so talented, so bright… I had nothing to do with that, and I knew when I looked at you that me coming back in your life wouldn't do you any good, so yeah, I left."

"But you're here now," she stepped forward. She had put a cross on any desire of finding him again, and now that he was here, she was finding she'd had every reason to give up those desires.

"Because I realized that was stupid, that I never should have walked out, that day I came to see you."

"But you did. The way I see it, that was exactly who you are… and it was all I needed to know. You had your chance, and you blew it. You had it… for years, ever since you walked out on me and my mother, and every day after that. You had your chance, and now I finally get to tell you, face to face… you lost that chance. I don't want you in my life, or anywhere near it. So you're going to take your flowers, and you're going to walk out of here. I'm going to forget about you, and you'd better forget about me, because this is never going to happen… Peter."

He didn't argue. He turned on his heel, and he walked out. Chloe went and shut the door, and she returned to sit in front of the mirror. Where had the smiles gone?

She wasn't going to do this, she wasn't going to let him wreck this moment for her. She closed her eyes, and she pictured herself back on that stage, recalled the moment that had warmed her heart, let it coil its way back around her, repelling the feelings brought on by Peter's visit.

She had no regrets about what she'd said to him. He hadn't earned the ability to make her feel remorse any more than he'd earned the right to be called Dad. He'd walked away from her a long time ago, and now here she was, on premiere night, and… No… He wouldn't get this from her.

She changed out of her costume, undid her hair and makeup, and she was Chloe from Indiana all over again. She had all those who'd stood by her, waiting for her, and she couldn't wait to see them, to share with them the feeling of being up on that stage, staring into the lights.

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!