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 69th cycle. Now cycle 70!
GLEEKATHON FOURTH ANNIVERSARY CYCLE - It's October again, which means another year of Gleekathon is about to wrap up! At the end of the month it will have been four years since I've started doing my daily stories! As always, I will be celebrating this with a special cycle of stories to touch on my favorite stories I've done throughout the year. There will be two installments each on Thursdays, Saturdays, Mondays, and Wednesdays. The remaining days will feature, as they have in the last several months, new chapters of the latest story in my Doctor Who/Glee crossover series. As far as the anniversary stories go, it will be as I've done before, taking those past stories and either doing a prequel, sequel, POV swap, genre swap, alternate ending, or additional scenes.
This story is a POV SWAP on "Choirs & Legacies" a Sunshine Girls 2 series story originally posted on December 28 2012.
(This is a shift day, which means there will be two stories posted today!)
"Rewinding & Recalling"
(Older) Will, Nora (AU!Beth), Emily (OC; Nellie V.), (Future) New Directions
Sunshine Girls 2 series extra
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)
The first year he'd stepped in as director to the Glee Club at McKinley, he didn't know what he was doing. He felt confident, some times more than others, and there were plenty of ups and downs for all of them, teacher and students alike, to learn a thing or two. Even with a second year, third year, and onward, he was never done learning.
This year though… This year would be special, he knew, when he'd had some of his auditions.
He would never go and play favorites, giving any advantage to any one of those kids because of who they were, and that wasn't what this was about. It was about a piece of the past, his past and his club's past, turning around and giving back. One of his newest members in New Directions was none other than Nora P. Fabray, daughter and stepdaughter to four of his first year members.
It was such a surreal moment to think that he had been there to see her grow from even before she'd been born. He had seen Quinn Fabray sitting there, the child growing inside her belly. He was at the hospital the day she was born, and he had held her. He had done his very best to make sure that none of those kids lacked for anything, not while they were trying to both raise her and get their lives together. When the place had opened in his building, he'd helped Quinn and Finn look into it, knowing they were looking for a home to raise their daughter here in Lima, while Rachel and Puck were settling in New York.
Nora had grown from that tiny infant into an energetic child, and now an equally energetic teenager. She was the age her parents were, when they had taken their place in the choir room for the first time, and she looked a whole lot like her mother. He would soon discover her parents' influences, whether it was in her voice, her performance skills, and her instruments, especially the guitar.
Everything was coming full circle. He would never have said it, but he'd started to think about retiring from the show choir world, perhaps at the end of the year that was just starting. But then they'd come, Nora, and Emily Holt, who had her own share of New Directions legacy in her aunt Tina and uncle Mike. All of a sudden, he was feeling this new air in his lungs at the thought of seeing them and the rest of the club to as great heights as he'd seen those kids in his first year. They were just starting, and he wasn't about to go. He had to see what came next.
He'd have to keep himself from comparing the girls to their relatives. They were their own people, with their own styles. He could hear it, right there on the day they auditioned for him. Every year, every new boy or girl that stepped up on that stage had something new, something special that was all their own, and that was one of the things he liked to discover, at the same time that they were discovering it. Sometimes they couldn't see it themselves, and they just needed someone to take notice.
When the first day of Glee Club had arrived, something dawned on him. He'd figured it might be best not to tell the rest of the club about the girls and their connections to the club, but then this wasn't his first year. He knew what it was like, when someone thought another had an unfair advantage, and he wanted to try and minimize the damage as much as possible. That meant, in this case, having to tell the others about who Nora and Emily were to him. That way, they couldn't accuse him of trying to keep anything from them. All the cards would be on the table.
He was just pulling into the McKinley parking lot when his phone rang and he answered to find Rachel Berry at the other end of the line.
"It's so nice to hear from you, Rachel, especially today," he smiled.
"Yes, that is what I was calling to speak to you about," she spoke, and even after all these years, when it came to something like this, her voice had not changed. "I was wondering if you might not record today's Glee Club practice."
"I, well…"
"I know it's not what you would do most times, but it's Nora's first day, as you know…"
"Yes, I do know," Will smirked.
"If it was in any way possible I would be right there to watch, but I can't, so you see…"
"You know if I do anything special for her, I'll never hear the end of it, and she's going to suffer for it for who knows how long."
"Right, no, you're right, I… What if I paid for it, and you can send copies to all the parents, then we all win," Rachel countered, and Will went on smiling.
"You're not going to let this go, are you?"
"My daughter's first day in Glee Club, what do you think?" He sighed, looking around the lot outside his window. Glee Club wasn't until later that day…
"I'll try and sneak the camera in there, alright?" he conceded. He had a feeling that, even if she wasn't famous, even if she hadn't been in his own Glee Club back in the day, on Nora's first day there, she would have insisted either way, so if he was going to be doing it for any reason, it would be for that one.
"Thanks, Mr. Schue," she replied, and if her voice was all he had to go on, which it was at the moment, he could have believed that was that same Rachel, that young girl who had played one of the biggest roles in making his New Directions what they were.
He was as nervous and excited throughout the day as he would be on all his first days back, and this one didn't disappoint. All he wanted to do was to get in that choir room, and that only proved to him once and for all that he wasn't ready to give it up.
Finally the time came, and when he walked into the room, he was greeted by his students both old and new. He came to stand before them.
"Glee Club, welcome! 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. We have Emily Holt, whose aunt and uncle were with me from my first year as director. 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. I can only hope you, and everyone else, will take away as much as they did, being in this room. Now, let's get this started, everyone up."
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!