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 34th cycle. Now cycle 35!

YEAR TWO ANNIVERSARY CYCLE! - TODAY/TOMORROW it will have been two years since I've started this Gleekathon, and like last year I'm dedicating the cycle to commemorating my 21 favorite one shots or chapter stories from year two (up to the point where I did the planning ;)) A number of those I was very attached to, but left sad to see may have fallen through the cracks, so it seems fair they should get a second shot ;)

Last year there were three categories, but this year I've added two new ones: Prequel, Sequel, POV Swap, and now Alternate Ending, and Additional Scenes. In no particular order... Today's story is a POV Swap on #547 "How To Fold a Paper Heart" a Paper Heart Series story originally posted on April 21st 2011. [Note: this year I decided to boost the POV Swaps with new bits... enjoy! ;)]

"Stork Stalked"
Brittany, Brittana, Kurt
Paper Heart series extra

[A/N: THIS MARKS THE END OF YEAR TWO, SEE THE BOTTOM FOR MY RAMBLINGS ;)]

It wasn't as though she'd think anyone liked being sick, but she always found herself to have a particular dislike for it as a whole, especially when it came and grabbed her out of nowhere. This was the situation she was in now. She had gone to bed, everything was as alright as could be claimed alright, and then… She didn't know what time it was when she woke up, only that it was still dark out – something she only noticed after her dash to the bathroom where whatever was left in her stomach had gone and been expelled. It had been enough to rouse her father, who'd found her sitting there on the bathroom floor. He'd stayed with her until she was ready to get back to bed, and when she'd woken again, feeling even worse, he'd suggested she'd stay home, but she said she'd go. So she'd gone.

She wasn't exactly the most present person in class, most of the time, but at least she tried. On that day her teacher could have been offering to give her a million dollars in separate gold coins while standing there absolutely naked, and she wouldn't have noticed a thing. At the very least her brain was still able to understand 'bell rings, proceed to next class,' or she would have sat there and not moved all day. That was just how it was… she shut down…

Santana had been right there by her side the moment she'd found her like this, and Brittany was thankful. She could have stayed home, but then she would have been alone… here she had Santana to look out for her, so why would she choose the other option?

At lunch, after a negotiation that had eventually led to Brittany accepting to eat soup as Santana made her, they had gotten to a table, and once the spoon had been put in her hand she slowly began to eat. "Doesn't look like a cold," Santana had guessed. "Has to be food poisoning." Brittany had looked up at her, appalled that food could apparently poison you. But still she figured it would go away.

But then it happened again the next morning, and again in the next few days, even more. She didn't want her parents to worry, tried to hide it, which was only mildly successful. She still felt awful and acted like it when she was at school, but as of yet this was no cause for concern.

And then she'd gotten better… at least in part. She'd still get sick now and then, but it didn't wreck her the way it had before. Of course now there was another thing to wonder about, when she realized that with all this feeling sick she hadn't been aware of something else not happening when it should have, like clockwork she was… maybe she should mention it to Santana, she'd thought as she stood at her locker that day, but then it was Kurt who had approached her. "How are you feeling?" he'd asked. He'd been nice to her, this whole time with her being sick, and she was thankful for it.

"I don't know," she replied honestly. "I think it's something I ate, but my cat ate the same thing and he's fine," she shrugged. This had been more of a concern initially, when she'd considered Lord Tubbington could have been infected as well, but then he looked alright, so she'd calmed down.

"Yeah, you… you looked kind of ghastly," Kurt had gone on, and she'd frowned, imagining what that could mean for her.

"Does that mean throwing up? 'Cause I did that," she confirmed, and with the word came almost automatically the nasty memory, and she had to brace herself and hope nothing would happen.

"Okay, sure." He was just standing there, not saying anything, and after a while she figured maybe she could ask him the thing that was now on her mind.

"You think food poisoning affects… other things?" she started carefully, mildly aware of where they were. Not many things made her uncomfortable, but then…

"What kind of other things?" Kurt asked, and she hesitated.

"Other things," she paused, looking around… "Like girl things."

"I'm not a girl," he'd pointed out, and she was almost upset that he would think she thought that… although Santana would sometimes refer to him as 'one of the girls.' Before she could say anything though, he'd asked her, in a voice that even for him had startled her, "This girl thing, when you say 'affect', do you mean… change, or… not happening?" She stared at him, confused.

"I…"

"I'm going to make a wild assumption here and say we're talking about the same thing here, so this 'girl thing' that was affected, did it… not come when it was supposed to?" She stood up straight – okay, now they were talking. "Oh…" he spoke, and then he didn't speak for a while. She continued to look at him, hoping he'd turn back and give her the answer at some point if she just waited. "Right, here's what you need to do. Go to a clinic, and tell them exactly what you told me," he started, and she nodded along. "They'll want to run a test, and… and then you'll have your answer." She smiled, breathing out.

"See, you do know about these girl things," and she was put at ease by the way he smiled to her. As he walked away, she stared into her locker. She wasn't sure where she was supposed to go, but it didn't matter, at least she had something to do with it now, she… When he came back, she thought maybe he'd ask her something for Glee Club…

"Brittany, I need to ask you something, and it's important," he spoke, sounding a bit freaked out. She nodded. "In and around the time you and I were… together… Were you… were you with anyone else?" This sounded like a test question, which she knew by the familiar pinching right at her forehead. "Any other guys, you know…" he was gesturing now, and she followed his motions with her eyes before she got what he meant.

"Oh…" she nodded, understanding. She thought… she hadn't… so she shook her head. "No." He looked like she'd answered wrong. "Are you okay?" she asked, afraid for a moment he might be the one to get sick now… had she infected him?

"Okay, you know that clinic I mentioned?" he'd regained the power of speech all of a sudden. "I'm going with you… right now." She hesitated, looking inside her locker to her books.

"But I have a Spanish test."

"How do you think that's going to turn out?" he asked, and she considered this. Mr. Schuester may have been happy with her in Glee Club, but when she arrived in his Spanish class he'd just look sad…

"Okay, let's go," she'd agreed, shutting her locker door. They got into Kurt's car and drove off. The whole time she just tried and focused on happy things, good things, things that wouldn't make her remember her occasional case of motion sickness had been sent into new realms by this recent illness, making it much more frequent… No, no, happy things, pretty… She'd almost failed right there.

When they arrived and she'd managed not to get sick, she just did as Kurt told her to – filled out a form, sat with him… She'd been freaked out about something, at the idea of coming here, but she couldn't think of it in that instant, and all she saw were pleasant things… So she wasn't scared.

"Brittany," Kurt had called her name and she'd turned to look at him. "Do you know why we're here?" She blinked, reviewing events…

"Food poisoning," she replied with a shrug. He frowned.

"Yeah… I don't think that's what it is," he replied, and all she could do was stare at him. All she wanted was to know what was wrong with her, so she could know how to make it better. If he had some answers, she was listening. "If it's not food poisoning," he went on after a beat, "And you've been sick, and you're late…" he explained very slowly, managing to retain her attention. Suddenly it was starting to sound familiar, like she was remembering… something. She looked around the room, and she wondered if there had been this many pregnant women around the waiting room when she'd observed it a few moments before. But if they were all here, then it had to be this was a place where they had to be… but if she was there, too, then… then… Was this it? Did he know this was it all along? She looked back at him, hoping he could tell her something else, because what she was beginning to realize now… it made her heart try to leap out of her chest. He had to keep talking and make her see she was reaching the wrong conclusion, he… "Everything's going to be fine, I promise. I'll be right there." He wasn't correcting her, but… he was still reassuring, and somehow she managed a smile.

"Thanks," she spoke just as they'd called her name. They'd gone in the room with the nurse… and then it came back to her, the thing she'd been freaked out about, when the short woman in the funny pyjamas turned around with a syringe in hand… All Brittany's eyes saw, all they needed to see, was the gigantic needle… It probably wasn't too big, but it could have been a straw for all she cared, it still looked as freaky. She turned to Kurt, looking for a rescue, and he stopped her from leaving, even if the nurse was now asking her to roll up her sleeves. Why this? Why her? She hadn't done anything wrong, and she was sick, who would do this to a sick person? "Not needles, not needles…." she just went on muttering.

"I-it's alright, just keep looking at me," Kurt insisted as he got her to sit down.

"Not needles," she insisted, shaking her head.

"It's okay, don't think about it, look at me," he grabbed her hand and she looked at him, or through him, she wasn't sure. "You want… you want to sing?" he tried, and she gave her head a shake.

"No, I don't want to sing," she droned. She had never liked having to get shots, much less to get blood drawn, and even now it was a struggle to get her to do it, which would tend to involve a bribe on the end, and even then… at least she didn't bite the nurses anymore.

"Right, well, that's fine, I mean… You know when I was little I hated those things, too," Kurt was speaking though, and she made herself listen to him again. "And my mother, she would just keep her calm, and I realized if she wasn't scared then I didn't have to be, either." It shouldn't have worked, but it kind of did… with all the information she was trying to process now, maybe she just needed to have that to hang on to.

"So it doesn't scare you anymore?" she asked him, feeling her breath return just a bit.

"Sometimes," he said, and she felt a shiver. "But then I remember that it's just one instant and then… it's done." This made sense, she guessed, and she smiled at him, waiting for him to go on. "No, see, it's done," he'd said though, nodding for her to look. When she did, she saw a cotton ball taped to her arm and the needle now nowhere near her arm. How had she not noticed any of it? Now they were going back into the waiting room, and she had no idea what to do with herself. Was this really happening? It had taken her so long to understand how it really went down, and some of it she'd only really figured out as they sat here… But still the idea that this was happening to her was not even anything she could make herself comprehend, and with Kurt… She looked at him, and he looked frozen.

"Are you scared?" she asked him, not just out of concern, but out of a need to know, because of something else he'd told her…

"Terrified," he told her, and she felt her breath get short. "But… I'm here, okay?" he insisted, and she had to nod, even if she was losing a bit of her grip on things. "What about you?" he'd asked. "Are you… scared?" She looked at him, saw the fear in his eyes.

"If you didn't have to be scared because your mother wasn't… what happened if she WAS scared?" she formulated the cause of her own fear, and he had no words for her. The next person to address her was the receptionist, directing them to the doctor's office.

The man had said the words, had said it to both her and Kurt, but all she could do was stare at him. No, this couldn't be happening, it just couldn't, it… Maybe she was having a dream, a really horrible little dream, and she would wake up, panicked, but then reassured by the safety of her bed and of reality, of… But her arm pinched under the clear piece of tape that held the cotton ball where the nurse had taken her blood – Santana had told her if it hurt then it wasn't a dream… It hurt… the tape hurt, and somewhere in her chest hurt… It wasn't a dream…

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!

And that's a second year complete... I'm still not able to put it in my head that it's been two whole years since this started, that it's still going strong. This is my sanity, in this craziness of university, at least for a little bit every day ;) Of course now I'm in my final semester, about to graduate, and I can't wait because that means I'll be able to do things I haven't been able to do (you know, besides transcription, organization, general clerical overload ;)) Good times, good times for year three!

As for year two, it's definitely been hectic in a whole other way than year one. Courses got more complicated, which led to this whole madness with stories having to be written straight on the computer, piles of 'to transcribe' stories stacking up... yet another thing I need to deal with once school is over... It allowed me to keep going uninterrupted, so I guess it's all good ;) Can't wait to be all caught up though...

This year I definitely took a few more risks... more chapter stories, most challenging of all the massive Valentine's story... crossovers (Doctor Who! Castle! The Big Bang Theory!)... new series (Trinity, Paper Heart, Sam & Nell, Rent..) and the old series too...

Had to do a lot of planning ahead, due to being in university, which would mean most of the time that I had to plan stories weeks ahead of time (for instance at the moment I have stories planned through to the first days of January), which did allow for some forethought as far as series planning, but it sucked in the event that something happened on the show and I'd really want to do a ficlet for it, but schedule made it impossible for months...

And then there's all you lovely people! Awesome helpers, you know who you are and you kick all kinds of ass on a daily basis for dealing with my madness, wuv you! :D All of you who take the time and leave reviews, you have no idea how instrumental you are to my keeping going every day. You are dipped in awesomesauce, and I'm hugging you all right now, right now! And I've said it before, I'll say it again, I am always open to plot suggestions, requests, whatever, if it's something I can do, then I'll do it, so long as you're willing to wait for whenever I can schedule it ;)

So two years done... tomorrow is the 'official' anniversary and thus the beginning of year three! Just imagine, if I make it to next October, I'll have cracked 1000 days! Ah! Miles to go before I sleep ;)

Cheers and gleek on... gleekathon on ;)
mooners