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 62nd cycle. Now cycle 63!
"Making It Along"
Chloe & friends
Red series
(no listing yet; sequel to "The Berry Workshop")
She hadn't known how happy she would feel when they would ask her to hang out, that first day coming out of the workshop. She'd been so concerned with finally making it there, to experience what it would be like to learn from her idol, the last thing she had thought about was the possibility she might make some friends. But then she had, three of them in fact. There had been Tara first, the tall one from Ontario, and then Eva, the short one from Texas, then finally Marcus had joined them, returning to his native New York from Nebraska. They had stuck by her throughout the day, and they had made everything even more memorable than she had expected it to be.
"Come on, Indiana, you're coming with us," Tara had given her a smile, leading her off by the shoulders. Chloe had barely gotten a chance to look back at her teacher and host before they were out the door.
They had ended up at a coffee shop, of all places, the one where she had met Rachel Berry for the first time, a few months back. There was the same boy behind the counter, the one she now knew to be Sophie's infamous Julian, although she didn't think he would know who she was in return, and that was probably a good thing.
They didn't know, any of those three, how she'd ended up in the workshop with them. They didn't know Rachel Berry herself had offered her the spot, no audition, no nothing at all, or that for the past few weeks she had been living with her and her daughter. She had gotten comfortable with them, or she was getting there, and she'd forgotten what it might look like to others, like she hadn't earned her place, or she might get preferential treatment. She didn't want it, nor did she expect it. Tara, Eva, and Marcus were good to her, and they could be friends. She didn't want them to shun her because of how she'd earned her place. It would have been easy to get it out of the way, but she didn't know them enough to know how that would go over. Only the longer she waited, she was afraid it would only make it worse once they found out. Don't lie. Don't ever lie.
They had all made their orders, and as they waited, they had started talking about the first day of the workshop. She had been so worried the whole time, in the days and weeks leading up to it. She would think about what it would be like, about what she'd be like. Would she be the same as she was when she'd met her, the way she was at home? Would she be hard on them, pushing them the way they needed to be pushed? She would take it gladly, if it meant that she would get better, but then what if she couldn't take it and she cracked?
She had seen a new side of Rachel Berry that day for certain, but that had not been a bad thing. This was her idol, a woman who had worked for years and years to get to where she had gotten. She hadn't gotten there by being guided along like a poor defenseless child. She had taken it all and she had become stronger. Chloe wanted that, no matter how hard, no matter how stressful. She had put them all through the paces from day one, and if there was any doubt Chloe would get treated like anyone, it had been erased. She'd been critiqued as much as the others, more than some, less than others. She would say she stood at the center of the pack at this point.
"Did you see the look on Thomas' face when Berry commented on his solo?" Eva leaned against the counter, imitating the boy's expression. Ever since he'd tossed a comment about a 'Shrek revival' at her, Tara, and Chloe, she'd wanted nothing more than to see him fall on his face. That had been as close to it as she was likely to get, and she would gladly take more.
"What did you expect? If you're going to go in there and sing one of the songs she's most known for, you better have the skill to back it up," Tara declared.
"But you know what was the best part though. When she went on after him," Marcus nodded to Chloe, who looked like a deer caught in headlights.
"It wasn't that good. I missed my note on the end."
"Minor detail," Eva assured her. "You impressed her, and that's what mattered. That, and the way Thomas looked ready to lose it." Chloe didn't want to laugh, but remembering his face it was hard not to.
"You had the best solo, hands down," Chloe told the Texas girl, and the other two wholly agreed.
"I did kind of rock that, didn't I?" Eva bowed her head.
"I-am-picking-up-your-next-round rocked it," Marcus confirmed. They had gotten a table near the window, which she appreciated, especially as she could feel Julian was not too far off from figuring out that she looked familiar for a reason.
"So, are your parents freaking out at all?" Tara asked her, and she frowned.
"Freaking out?"
"You, off in the big city on your own," she explained.
"Oh… Yeah, but… it's not so bad." This would have been her opening, to tell them why it wasn't 'so bad,' and she knew it. But then the topic had been dropped when Marcus had spotted his ex walking by on the street outside and made a dive out of view, which made the girls burst out laughing.
"Is he gone?" he asked.
"Yeah," Eva passed a napkin to Chloe so she could clean the coffee spill. "Bad break up?"
"Happened when we moved to Nebraska. I might not have told him I was coming for this."
"Clingy?" Tara guessed.
"Like super glue that cries a lot and calls in the middle of the night."
"You're rooming with Thomas, what's he…" she started, and Eva threw her a look.
"Don't even think about it, Wickham, you do realize he thinks of you like a blonde-haired, blue-eyed version of a Scottish ogre. I'm just saying, there are much better fish in the sea."
"And I have one hell of a fishing pole," he pointed to his face, and the girls cringed. "That sounded like something else, didn't it?" he bowed his head.
"Little bit," Chloe laughed. There'd be time to tell them. Not today.
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!