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 77th cycle. Now cycle 78!

"Going Out With a Bang"
((Older) Rachel,) Chloe (OC) & Workshop friends (OC)
Red series
(no listings yet; sequel to "What May Be")

It had become routine that, after workshop was done for the day, Chloe and her friends would find their way back to Rachel Berry's house, where they would hang out for the rest of the afternoon. But with the workshop drawing to a close, those days were evaporating faster than they could see them going. Soon it would all be over, and it would be anyone's guess when they would manage to do anything together again.

"We won't be those guys, will we?" Eva asked Chloe and George, sitting with her while Tara and Marcus were going back over the dance they'd learned earlier that day, arguing over who'd had it better.

"What guys?" Chloe asked.

"The ones that say they'll stay in touch and then next thing you know it's 'Eva who? Short girl?'" she intoned as though she was digging deep into her memories and struggling for a catch.

"You have a memorable stature," George nodded, getting a snort from Chloe and a glare from Eva.

"You know 'those guys,' like you say, they must have had that talk, too, right?" Chloe pointed out after a beat, breathing out. "And it still happened." Eva's shoulders slumped. "It might happen with us, and we won't have wanted it that way but..."

"What's going on, why do you all look like that?" Marcus frowned when the argument with Tara had ended on them finding the other three sitting on and around Chloe's bed with bummed out faces.

"You two didn't break up, did you? I know we're all splitting up soon…" Tara turned to Chloe and George.

"What?" Chloe blinked. "No! No," she turned this one to George, who smiled at her.

"I wasn't worried," he assured her.

"Right, good," Chloe nodded before turning back to Tara and Marcus. "No, but we were just thinking about after the workshop, staying friends, how we might end up falling out by accident."

"Accident? Oh, I'm totally ditching you," Tara gave a mock glare to Eva.

"Oh, ouch," she gasped with a smile.

"Here's an idea," George sat up. "We don't know what's going to happen, except Tara giving Eva the tiny heave-ho…"

"Uncalled for," Eva's head snapped back to look at him.

"I'll allow it," Tara raised her hand.

"We might only stay friends for a while and go on our separate ways, and that would suck," he went on, all the while keeping Chloe's hand in his, ensuring that she knew this didn't include her. She smiled, covered their hands in hers. "Or we might be ridiculously co-dependent until we're in our eighties. One way or the other, we're going to want something to remember this time by. If we're still all hanging out, it'll be something we can bring up every once in a while, laugh about… And if it turns out that we fall apart, then… we'll still have this."

"Alright, we're listening, Stretch," Eva crossed her arms.

"Well, that was… kind of as far as I got with that idea," George admitted.

After this, the ideas started being tossed about. It ranged anywhere from tattoos, to carving their initials somewhere in the workshop room, or sneaking on to a Broadway stage. If it had gone any further, Marcus looked very close to suggesting some kind of blood oath.

"Oh! Oh!" Tara's arm shot up. "I got it, I know what we have to do!"

"There's going to be blood, isn't there?" Chloe stared up at her.

"Flash mob!" Tara declared.

"Oh, hey, we travelled back in time, didn't even notice," Marcus looked around the room.

"Hey, what have we been doing all summer?" Tara went on, undeterred. "What better way is there for us to remember everything?"

"Alright, that might be the least destructive idea we've had so far. I'm in," Chloe shrugged.

Over the next few days, they would go back and forth on the plan fort their end of workshop performance. With only the five of them, it didn't seem so hard to figure it all out.

Then little by little, they had let slip to others in the workshop what they were planning, and then this girl asked if she could join, these two guys had song suggestions… Within five days, they had the whole group, from close friends down to Thomas Walton, who they usually did their very best to sidestep. In the wind down to the end of the workshop, maybe they had some strike of nostalgia, but, in even more of a surprise, so did Thomas. He was being so nice that they were left with two answers: either he was really able to act like something other than a psychopath, or he was plotting something none of them were seeing coming.

"I guess he finally saved Christmas or something," Marcus shrugged after the Colorado boy had left them.

"Dude's scheming," Eva shrugged, doubtful.

"Or he's got some… redeeming… sort of…" Marcus insisted. Eva fixed him with a wide eyed stare.

"Marcus Anthony, have you been taking a scenic climb of the Rockies?" Tara, Chloe, and George looked up as one.

"I think I left my watch in the dressing room," Marcus wrapped his hand around his wrist – over his watch – and turned to walk away from the group. That wasn't going to happen.

"When did you…" Chloe started.

"Walton's gay?" Tara had spoken at the same time.

"He's crazy!" Eva had spoken, too. George said nothing, and Chloe had the distinct impression that he'd known about this before any of the girls did. Marcus took a breath, let it out, debating.

"You can't tell anyone. He's not ready, so he kind of… overcompensates," he finally said. The girls looked to one another. Thomas had been the one person in that entire room they couldn't stand, but they knew Marcus well enough, cared about him enough, that they couldn't just find it in them to mess with him about any of it.

"We should ask him if he's got ideas for the music," Chloe piped in.

"Yeah, dude knows his stuff," Tara agreed.

"I guess he's got a nice…" Eva started to say, awkward, then stopped, throwing Marcus a smirk. "Well, you know… Wait, do you?" Marcus chuckled.

"So, we should pick a date for this thing."

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!