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 32nd cycle. Now cycle 33!

Hear that little bird twitter! Been thinking about doing this for a couple days, then this morning decided to just go for it. If you go there, find 'gleekathon' and there I'll be. There's also a video explaining everything... Yep... ;) Check it out!

"Where Did The Pride Go?"
Rachel

Her fathers were in the habit of doing things for her if she believed in them enough. When she made this request for the nose job, what she heard was support, but what she saw… that was doubt… thinly-veiled. But, finally, they had gone along with it. "If you're sure that's what you want," Pop told her. She would remember those words, helping her realize who it was that left a 'discreet' message in her room a few nights later.

She had just taken a shower, and as she returned to her room, hair snug in a towel, there was a framed picture on her bed. She knew it well: it usually sat on Pop's bedside table. The frame had been decorated by her in the first grade. She'd painted it red and done gold stars all around except at the bottom, where she'd traced the words with her teacher's help: "Daddies' best girl."

That was what they would call her, and no doubt figuring whose picture would end up in the frame, it made sense. Now Rachel looked at that picture, of herself at about six or seven, posed with her head held high in her dance class clothes, and it just made her smile. She remembered how she felt then, how she didn't feel, too.

She left her room, seeking out some of the many albums packed with images chronicling her childhood. She ended up sitting there on the ground, in robe and towel, with albums at her side, looking at image, after image, after image, and what she saw was the same… across the board.

This was a happy girl. She ran, she danced, she laughed, she sang, she played… She may not have had everything she wanted, may have lacked… friends… but nothing existed in her mind that was so big as to consider what she was now considering doing to herself.

What had changed? Sure, with the years had come her entry in high school and everything it entailed, but still… somewhere along the way she had started caring about something like her nose in ways she had never concerned herself with before.

Back in the day, she could hold her head up high, which by association meant presenting that nose out to the world. She didn't care and, if anyone made snide comments, maybe she'd pout, or run, or cry a bit, but she'd carry along, forgetting all about it.

This was who she was… 'Daddies' Best Girl'… nose and all… who never saw it as something bad, much more as something to further connect her to her idol… This was one time in her life, and… then what? What was going to happen when she got out of McKinley, felt free to embrace herself, top to bottom… except somewhere near the top something would be missing… She'd be missing…

Because now she looked at those pictures, and instead of trying to see the 'perfect' nose, she was looking at the whole, at the girl… Happy girl, who ran, and danced, and laughed, and sang, and played… This was her, this was Rachel Berry of Lima, Ohio… package deal… She would continue to be Rachel Berry… of New York City, New York someday maybe… someday definitely… But would she still be her if she suddenly traded in a piece of herself? What would the memories and the pictures be worth then? Nostalgia? Or regret?

She didn't want to look back at who she was like it was 'who she used to be.' She prided herself in having found her dreams early on in life and having kept them and nurtured them and in never, ever abandoning them. She could get that nose job, as Pop had said, 'if she was sure that was what she really wanted,' but then wouldn't it have been telling that little girl with the big dreams that… she wasn't good enough? She had never thought that… but then…

She got up off the floor, sliding each photo album back on the shelf in its proper order, and as she did so she was hardly seeing the smile that crept on her lips. The last picture to put away was the one in the frame. She carried it to her fathers' room, put it back in its rightful place before returning to her room.

She brushed out her hair, sitting at her mirror. As she finished, she put the brush down though she continued to stare at her reflection. She tilted her head this way and that… Her nose had healed up nicely. She turned her head, angled up, down… Now that the swelling was gone, she had to say… it didn't look half bad… She liked her nose… it was her… She didn't know how she'd forgotten that.

It was never said in so many words, the fact that she'd decided against the surgery after all, but they could tell. She stopped treating any and all reflective surfaces as a nose inspection tool… The pictures of noses disappeared from her mirror… She kept her head high… The subject was never brought up again, except maybe once, without one word, when Rachel went to Pop, and she hugged him, tight with gratitude. He returned the gesture, smiling quietly.

She would get through this, and the dream would live on. She'd carry on being that girl… being herself, and she'd do what she'd always done.

One day, this would all just be an unpleasant memory, a story she told, of the part of herself that almost wasn't anymore… She wouldn't regret the decision, couldn't… She was here, she had her nose, and if they didn't like it, then they didn't have a say in it… not one word.

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!