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 45th cycle. Now cycle 46!

INTRODUCING "CHEAT SHEET" - If you want to know ahead of time when a certain series will be updated next, just reassemble the link below and check out the list, save it, print it, bookmark it, whatever you need!
Go to: gleekathon [dot] tumblr [dot] com [slash] cheatsheet

(cycle 46 cheat sheet will be up later)

"Under a Neon Sign"
Quinn

(day 2 of 7 in Jade's awesome birthday week! ;))

From the moment she reawakened, in the hospital, after her accident, her life continued to feel like a heavily guarded entity. She was never just herself, hardly ever by herself. People hovered over her, and she supposed that was normal. She wasn't ungrateful, but she just wanted to feel normal again. She wanted to put the accident behind her, but how could she when everyone was there around her with those sad and concerned eyes?

Her mother had been on her... just about non-stop. She could see the terror continue to live in her eyes. In the beginning, for the time however long it was from when she woke up, realized what had happened, and actually saw her mother, she did kind of have this fear of how she would react. She'd wrecked the car, she'd been texting rather than keeping her eyes on the road... That was on her.

But from the moment her mother had reached her bedside, all she ever showed was complete and utter relief that Quinn was alive, and she would promise to her, in a whisper or in a voice shaken with tears, that everything would be alright, that she would get better. Even when her legs wouldn't work, she repeated her mantra... Everything would be alright...

She doubted she could ever forget that moment, that realization that she couldn't feel her legs. She had not shouted, she hadn't thrashed about, no, but she had cried, so hard her breath giving out had been the only way she stopped. Her mother had been right there to hold her, to make promises Quinn had no choice but to believe if she wanted to cling to whatever sanity she had left. When the doctor had said she could very well start walking again after she had healed, she would grasp that now, make that her truth. She would walk again.

So now she felt she could face the world with some dignity, keep her head high. People continued to look at her different which, once she started going about in her wheelchair, was probably understandable. But then she expected all of that. There was just one she hadn't counted on, because she'd stopped counting on him for over a year now. Still, one day...

She'd not gone back to school yet, though she would, in the next week. Until then she just did her best to get ready. Her arms would hurt, not used to have to wheel herself about all the time, and she definitely gained a new respect for Artie there. She begged her mother to leave her on her own a bit, so she could look after herself. Judy hesitated, refused in the beginning, but eventually she had agreed. She'd been gone over an hour now, and Quinn was doing just fine, proud of herself for that.

When the doorbell rang, she thought it was her mother, unable to stay away any longer, and she had gone to answer the door, ready to promise that she was fine... only it wasn't her mother. Instead, Quinn found herself staring up into the eyes of her father, Russell.

"D... What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice showing how much she didn't really care. She had sort of expected him to be there at the hospital, but he wasn't. To have him show up now, she could have looked at it as him having been so ashamed that he had abandoned her the way he had, but all she could see looking at him was the hypocrit who had preached and preached and kicked her out of her house for being pregnant, when all the while he had been having an affair.

"Hello, Quinn," he spoke to her, though he couldn't help but look at the chair. He looked uncomfortable, and even if she could see there was some pain in his eyes, seeing his daughter like this, she didn't change her position.

"Are you looking for mom, she's not here."

"Please don't do this," he begged.

"Don't do what? You think you get points just for showing up... now? And after what you've done."

"I just wanted to see you're alright," he insisted.

"You saw. See, I'm fine."

"You can't walk..."

"Temporary," she vowed.

"You're not giving me a chance here..."

"What, like you did?" He had no chance in turning that argument around. He knew it, and so did she. Still the fact that he admitted it was a step in the right direction. She wanted to make him hurt, in that moment more than ever. She wanted to see pain in his eyes and she didn't know why. But then realizing this, she had to let out a breath and close her eyes. "Fine, come in, sit, but you're gone before mom gets back, understood?"

"Yes," he agreed, so finally she wheeled aside to let him in and they went into the living room. Of course he sat where he always did, the reflex still in him. She didn't place herself at her old seat, not needing to feel like she was back to that night when he had kicked her out. Instead she stopped her wheelchair just by where her mother would sit, like she protected the place. It looked to disarm him, either that or the chair... She was just fine by it.

"So how's... she?" Quinn asked. She'd never shown any interest whatsoever in remembering his father's mistress' name. He looked almost... ticked off by how in control she was. She wasn't that girl anymore, the one so needing of him who had been blindsided by his abandonment.

She'd always known the kind of man he was, to some degree, but she was willing to give him an inch to earn his way back in because he was her father and she did love him. She still did, today. That was what made it worse. She'd look at him and she'd remember who they used to be to each other, before she'd seen what she had made herself ignore for so long. That box couldn't be shut again.

"This... was a mistake," Russell declared after a moment.

"Yeah, and you'd know all about mistakes, right?" Quinn turned her head up to look at him as he stood. She still towered over him from down below. "I'm going to be just fine, Dad. I'm getting better day by day, and I'll be back on my feet before you know it. I'll do it on my own, with mom, with my friends... and without you. I'll graduating soon, after the Glee Club and I win at Nationals, and then I'll be off to Yale. How's that for the family screw up?" The last time she had gone and faced him, she'd cried after leaving him, but she wouldn't cry this time. When he left the house, she just waited until he was gone, breathed. And she went about her day.

She'd never tell him he did help her that day, if not in the way he intended. She'd always believed that she would get through this, that this moment where everyone kept looking at her was only ever going to be one part of her life before she moved along to what came after it, but maybe she needed to hear herself say it, to announce and affirm it with absolute faith. And looking at her father she had done it. She was ready... for so much more...

THE END