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 42nd cycle. Now cycle 43!

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** UPDATED WITH CYCLE 43 CHEAT SHEET ** Check it out to find out about shift days!

This is a shift day [see above]. There will be another upload this afternoon: The Cautionary Tale of Lucy Collins, chapter 6.

"Almost There"
Rachel & AU!Quinn
Berry-St series (following Berry's Keeper)

At first it had been hard to keep thinking about solutions. She was home, her worries had gone and diminished rapidly, so rapidly that for a few days she didn't think about any of it, didn't want to. But then when the whole thing had cooled off, she had to remember this wasn't over. The other Jesse and Quinn, they were still here, while her world's Jesse and Quinn were still over there… She wanted to get everyone back where they belonged, and right now she wanted none more than her Jesse back.

But as much as she could hope to get something done, nothing had changed… They still had no idea how to do this, had no control. She had been switched back, but she hadn't done anything to provoke it, so how had it happened? Was it her? The other Rachel? Had she done something to provoke this? She couldn't know… but she knew someone who might.

She had not really talked with either of them the last few days, so she dreaded the thought that they might hold it against her, might think she had abandoned them. As far as anyone else knew, everything was business as usual. They still went to class, still went to Glee Club… On the way out of practice that day, Rachel had caught Quinn's eye and beckoned her to follow. She didn't wait for a response, just went and hoped that she would do so.

She got to the door to the library, paused, then went in, found a private corner and sat. She didn't have to wait long, joined by Quinn a moment later. "I wasn't sure you'd come," Rachel looked to her.

"I wasn't sure you remembered we were still here," Quinn countered and Rachel nodded.

"I know, I'm sorry. But I'm here, and I want to help," she promised. Quinn gave a silent nod, sitting and observing her.

"This seem familiar?" she asked with a smirk. Rachel looked around. It was odd to think they had been in this exact same place just a little while ago, only it wasn't really 'this exact place,' it was the same spot in the same library but in the other world, and at the time Quinn was where she belonged, while Rachel was in a world that wasn't her own. Now it was the other way around.

"Except last time, you wanted your Jesse back, and you got him, now I'm here and…"

"I thought he wasn't really 'your Jesse' that other one," Quinn reminisced, looking at her. "I'm guessing that changed while you two were over there?" she managed a smile.

"It's… complicated," Rachel bowed her head.

"It was then, too. Judging by your face it's even more complicated now?"

"I don't know," Rachel admitted. "We never really had time to figure it out."

"So it that why you want to help? To get him back?" Rachel looked to her, nervous.

"No, I mean I want to help you guys, I…"

"It's okay," Quinn stopped her. "I mean, that was kind of my reason to help you guys at first, remember?" She was right, Rachel realized. Quinn had been growing suspicious of the new girl hanging out with her boyfriend so she had followed Rachel and Jesse and confronted them. It had been Rachel's choice to tell her the whole secret about who they were, and everything about the world swap. And when Quinn had understood this guy wasn't her boyfriend, only a guy who looked like him while her Jesse was stuck elsewhere, she had declared that she would help them.

"Okay, well what happened, when the other me switched back. Did she do anything special?" Quinn thought about it.

"No, not that I can tell. She was here in the library, working, and then Santana had come to talk to her. She said that all of a sudden she was really tired, and she couldn't stay awake, so she brought her to me and Jesse. When she told us what happened, I knew what was happening, because the same thing had happened to me," she explained.

"So she didn't do anything either," Rachel concluded, and Quinn shook her head. "Great, so we've got nothing," she sighed.

"Not necessarily. I mean you came back, so… maybe we just have to wait it out and we'll get switched back too, just…" she had looked briefly hopeful, but then she remembered the part about possibly being split from her Jesse again, and the wait didn't seem as acceptable.

"We'll find a way," Rachel decided. "We just can't stop trying. We'll get my Jesse and my… you… back, and you and yours can go back, and we can all put this behind us." Quinn looked to her, nodding – they could do this.

When Rachel had gone back home that day – hugging her fathers when she saw them, as she did now that she was home – she had gone back to trying to figure everything out. They had tried to find the way back, all of them. They had been trying from the start, and not one of them had gotten anywhere closer to an answer, so maybe they had to look at it from another perspective, like the beginning.

Something had to have triggered all of it. This hadn't happened at random, she knew that much, or else it wouldn't have been her and two people she knew. At first, it had been her and her Jesse, swapped with this other Jesse and Rachel. But those two, they had not known each other at all except by some distant knowledge of one another within the Glee Club circuit. So it couldn't have been about them, it had to be her, and her Jesse, about them…

But why bring them together, closer, in another world, because they had only one another to rely on, only to split them up again? Before this had happened, they had not been in a good place with one another, after everything that had happened with her mother, and their respective clubs… and now the idea that he was in this other world, where she couldn't see him, it was just… painful. She missed him, wanted him back, the way Quinn had wanted her Jesse back…

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!