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 an ALTERNATE ENDING to "Hiccups on the Bend" a Red series story originally posted on September 2 2013.

(This is a shift day, which means there will be two stories posted today!)

"The Long Crawl"
((Older) Rachel), Chloe (OC), Sophie (OC)
Red series extra
(no listing yet)

The last thing Chloe was planning to do on her night alone at the Berry house was to go and retrieve her idol's daughter after a night out drinking with friends. But that was what she'd done, finding a rather drunk Sophie and slowly but surely coaxing her inside the house after driving her there. When they got in, she helped her to the couch, where she sat down and looked around.

"Did you sleep here?" Sophie looked up at her quizzically. She looked like she was five.

"I fell asleep watching tv," Chloe shrugged.

"It's Friday!" Sophie protested. "What are you doing here on a Friday night? You… You should go out, go, go on," she pointed somewhere off that had to be the door.

"It's almost three. It's Saturday morning now."

"Right you are," Sophie nodded to herself. "Come, sit," she patted the couch next to her. "Tell me what you did." Chloe came and sat, promptly receiving Sophie's head on her shoulder.

"I didn't do anything, not tonight."

"Oh but you did do something, didn't you?" Sophie asked, pivoting her head with her chin to Chloe's shoulder. "What did you do, what?"

"I went around the city. I ran into George…"

"George? Who's George? Is he cute?" Sophie asked, with glazed innocent eyes.

"He's… yeah, he's gorgeous actually… like a statue," she drifted off thinking about him.

"Woah…"

"He asked me out," she revealed.

"Do it!" Sophie ordered at once, tugging on Chloe's arm. "Oh come on, do it!"

"I don't think I can. I'll go back to Indiana when this is done, and he's from here."

"No, no, no, you don't belong in… Indiana," she spoke the word like it was a rotted apple. "No, you belong here, in New York. You're a star," she whispered the last word, and it made Chloe smile.

"But where would I stay? I can't live here with you forever. I mean, it'd be great, but I'd be imposing." Sophie made a noise Chloe was fairly sure was supposed to mean 'oh, come on.'

"Are you kidding? My mother wouldn't mind, she'd love it! And then you and me could be sisters," she smiled wide, as though she'd just presented Chloe with the greatest idea ever known to man. As much as she was trying not to get pulled into Sophie's drunken reasoning, it did make her smile.

"I think you need to get to bed," she told her, and Sophie frowned.

"It's too far."

"I'll help you get there, alright?" Sophie sighed, making Chloe squirm at the alcohol on her breath.

"Fine, lead on, Clarke," she held out her arms. Chloe got up, and as Sophie had been leaning on her, the drunk girl nearly tipped over before she was caught. Chloe pulled her to her feet, having to factor in Sophie's lack of comprehension on the word 'stop' at this moment. She nearly toppled a few times before they'd even made it to the stairs. Now Chloe was imagining some kind of scenario where they made it up, only for Sophie to slip out of her grip and tumble down the stairs. She wasn't about to have that.

She couldn't even call any of her friends for help. If she did, that would mean telling them what she'd kept a secret thus far, that she was being sheltered by Rachel Berry herself. But was that secret worth enough to get Miss Berry's daughter hurt?

"Sophie, sit," she told her, and the girl obeyed, dropping on to the bottom step like a docile child. Chloe pulled out her phone. As soon as she looked at the screen and tried to think of who she was supposed to call, she froze. She couldn't decide. What if she called Sophie's boyfriend, Julian? Maybe he could get her up the stairs. "Was Julian at the party with you guys?"

"Julian…" Sophie hummed with a happy grin on her face. She hugged her sleeves to her face, and Chloe guessed somehow his scent was on there.

"Well was he?"

"Sure!"

"Did he drink, too?" Sophie laughed, and Chloe knew that meant yes. No Julian. She was back to square one. When she looked back to Sophie, she realized… "Did you go up?" she pointed, noticing she was on the third step now. Sophie laughed even harder. Maybe she didn't need to call anyone. "Keep going," Chloe told her, and Sophie pulled herself up another step. "Again." She had to make her go up every last step, until she reached the top.

"Are we going down now?"

"No, we're not," Chloe went to pull her up again, trying to decide how long it would take to get her down the hall and into her room. They were halfway there when Sophie stopped.

"Uh oh…" she spoke, and Chloe had a bad feeling.

"Are you…"

"I don't feel good," Sophie warned, and Chloe didn't know where she found the strength, but she hoisted the other girl up and carried her as fast as she could to the bathroom. They made it, and Sophie sat there in front of the toilet for some time, while Chloe stood in wait, dreading what was bound to happen next. Knowing herself, her stomach might protest in return.

But nothing happened. They sat there for what must have been half an hour, and nothing happened except for Sophie falling asleep, curled up on the cold bathroom floor, mumbling how it felt good. Then she mumble-sang in her sleep, what seemed to be a made up song dedicated to Julian, describing certain things that made Chloe glad Miss Berry wasn't there to witness it.

Eventually, Chloe had found a way to slide Sophie on to a towel and drag her carefully to her room. She woke her up just enough to get her to cooperate as she lifted her up on the bed. There was little left to do now but take off her shoes and leave her something in case she got sick in the night. Chloe ended up making herself a bed of blankets on the ground, so she could be at Sophie's side in case anything happened.

Lying there, Chloe remembered what the drunk girl had said earlier, how they could be sisters if she stayed. She had to admit that did sound nice, but she wasn't about to get her hopes up. She knew where she had to be.

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!