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 40th cycle. Now cycle 41!

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This is a shift day [see above]. There will be another upload this afternoon: The Troubletone Incursion, chapter 4 (marked as 3).

"Money, Money, Money"
Rachel/Puck
Project No Day But Today #14 (following 'Back to Work')

She wouldn't let him out of her sight, whenever one of them made a drop. She would have preferred it coming straight to her house instead of at school, but when they'd come to her with their 'donation to the cause,' she couldn't well turn them away either. But then she'd get her money face, as though she was afraid of losing any of it, or of letting anyone know she had it. The others were trusting her with this, and she wouldn't let them down.

So when a new sum was handed to her, as discreetly and non-shady as possible, it was a matter of not letting anyone know what she was doing, while she hit it in her locker for the rest of the day. Puck had been the one to develop the maneuver, wherein he would stand behind her, arms around her like the loving boyfriend he was. To any who would see, this was nothing but a sweet embrace, when secretly it was a money drop. "You're enjoying yourself, aren't you," she smirked.

"Hey, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do," he shrugged innocently.

At the end of the day, they would go, retrieve the money, and head on out to her place for 'tallying.' She would pull out the money box, well hidden, unlock it, then take out her ledger. The new name would be entered, the money counted, and then a new total would be penciled in before everything was put away again.

Their intention was to put everything in a bank account, so it would be safe, but with new drops once or twice a day it came down that they would wait until all of them had been added. It had been yet more of an emotional ride for her that, usually in the case of those who had jobs, some of them had donated twice, and some three times. By the time she'd gotten something from each of them, it was a much larger amount than she could have anticipated, to the point where she had to give a closer look to her 'potential expenses' list, and there she found a pleasant surprise…

Puck had been on his way to his indoor pool gig when he left her house, so she hurried to put everything away and headed out. She got to the building, dashed down to the pool level, where she could see him, already at work, through the window walls. She skidded to a stop, drumming her nails at the windows to call him to attention. He was surprised, moving around the pool as she came through the door.

"Are you okay? I just left you… Did Barbra announce a new concert?"

"Don't even joke about that!" she pointed a finger at him, took a breath to resettle, remember why she was there. "I finished tallying up all the money and I went through our needs…" she explained.

"So? What's the damage?" he asked.

"Well…" she dragged it out, slowly revealing a smile. "We're actually… pretty well off," she nodded.

"We are? That's awesome!" he smiled back. "So we have everything we need?"

"Well, no," she specified. "But we're not a charity case either…"

"What does that mean? For the musical…"

"That's what we need to discuss," she nodded. "Probably should have waited until you weren't in the middle of a job though… I'll go," she insisted.

"It's okay, you can stay."

"No, no, you just want to toss me in the pool again," she saw through him.

"I wouldn't do that to you… sweetheart…" he smirked.

"Famous last words," she laughed, backing away. "I'll wait outside."

"Not even a kiss?" he held out his arms. She backed her way out the door, closed it, blowing him a kiss from across her protective barrier. "Cute," he 'frowned.'

So he finished cleaning the pool, took care of everything, then finally rejoined her in the lobby. "It was too cold to wait outside," she shrugged.

"Coffee?" he offered, and they were on their way to the Lima Bean.

"Should we ask for crew members to donate?" was her first question once there. "It just seems like it would be out of place. 'Help us with our musical, also give us your money,'" she intoned. "We've been at this for months now, it means something to all of us, that's why we all gave money, right?"

"Right," he agreed. "We can give them the option?"

"Yeah, for sure."

"What about asking Schuester?"

"I'd rather not," she shook her head. "He's already putting his neck out for us, I don't want him to have to pay up, too, even if he'd probably do it, no second thought needed."

"Right," he sighed. "Well… we're selling tickets, aren't we?"

"At some point, hopefully," she breathed.

"So we can use that to pay for stuff, can't we?"

"That might be, if we could sell tickets in advance, but we don't even know when we'll be able to do that…" She looked to him, hesitated. "You know, I never doubt this whole thing, but sometimes…"

"Hey, you can't lose hope now," he insisted, which made her smile. "That's what you'd tell me, and I happen to think it's good advice."

"Yeah, I'm seeing that now," she nodded, trying to decide if she'd ever loved him as much as she did in that moment.

"How much are we missing? Ballpark figure," he asked. She thought about it, then looked around, grabbing a forgotten pen off the neighboring table and scribbling the amount on a napkin, which she turned over and slid to him.

"Don't want to just call it out for everyone to hear," she explained. With the set-up of the gesture, he followed through by doing the classic 'cautious look' at the amount written. He put it back down and looked to her.

"Okay," he nodded, and she frowned as though to say 'okay what?' "I can front you the money."

"No, but…" she shook her head.

"No buts," he refused. "It's like a loan. You pay me back when we've sold the tickets… Or never, whatever works for you," he shrugged.

"I'm… speechless," she could feel herself smiling. Bu… It's a lot…"

"I'd probably spend it on stupid junk. Look, it's simple: we're doing this, right?"

"We are."

"Then take the money."

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!