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 32nd cycle. Now cycle 33!

Hear that little bird twitter! Been thinking about doing this for a couple days, then this morning decided to just go for it. If you go there, find 'gleekathon' and there I'll be. There's also a video explaining everything... Yep... ;) Check it out!

"Pocket Universe"
Jesse, Rachel, Quinn, Jesse/Rachel
Berry-St #19 (following 'Strangers in a strange town)

It was the little things that started letting them know that she was starting to get desperate about their situation. But then with the amount of time and effort she spent studying body swap and alternate life movies and attempting to replicate whatever it was that had succeeded in sending everyone back where they belonged. Of course, it didn't work, and with every defeat Rachel only got more… boxed in with herself.

"I just think one of us needs to talk to her," Quinn told Jesse one afternoon, sitting next to him in the back row at Glee Club, looking down to Rachel on the first. Jesse followed her gaze, then after a beat he looked back at Quinn.

"Wait, you mean me?"

"Nothing gets by you," she confirmed with a tilt of the head and sarcasm in her voice. Jesse frowned.

"What did I ever do to you?"

"It's not me you need to worry about," she insisted, looking back to Rachel. He sighed, nodding slowly.

"I'll talk to her, alright? I swear."

When practice had ended, Jesse and Quinn got up and looked to one another. Maintaining the appearance that they were the other Jesse and Quinn, the ones from this world, also meant carrying on the fact that they were now openly dating. She'd resisted it, but she knew it was necessary. Still whenever she had to hold his hand, smile at him… or kiss him, worst of all… He could see every bit of her annoyance with him… He wasn't too thrilled either.

"See you tomorrow," she 'beamed,' and he could hear the exasperated sigh as she leaned in and kissed him. She had to put her whole body into it, or anyone would see there was absolutely nothing between them. He was the only one who could tell the difference.

"Bye… Sweetie," he put in, knowing it'd get her riled up; her eyes could shoot pointy daggers. With a sigh, he turned to look for Rachel, who was gathering her things. "Hey…" he started. "Where are you headed?"

"Video store," she breezed by, and he had to dash to catch up.

"Really? Me too…" he played and followed. She didn't argue; she didn't speak all that much either until they got there. She began to trail along the rows, staring at the covers. "I haven't been in one of these in a while…" he tried to start a conversation going… He got nothing. "Rachel…"

"I know what you're going to say," she suddenly spoke.

"Oh, good," he sounded relieved; it didn't last too long.

"We've been here for over a month now," she revealed and, thinking back, he supposed they had been. He hadn't seen the time go by, not like she had.

"I'm sorry, I didn't…"

"Every morning, I go down into the kitchen, and I see my father… Except he doesn't look… right. And I know why… and he doesn't know why… I've tried, maybe getting them back together, the two of them, but it doesn't work, like… I don't really know them, because they're not really my fathers…"

"We'll find a way," he promised, putting his hands on her shoulders. She turned to him.

"How?" her voice cracked, and no more words knew how to come, redirected as tears. His hands moved up, to wrap around Rachel and bring her close. She welcomed the hug completely, letting go of the pent-up fear.

"Honestly? I don't know." She whimpered, and he stroked her face. "But I swear we'll find a way. We wouldn't have been put here if there wasn't a way to go back. Something happened to us, the three of us. We'll find out what it is… and how it can bring us home."

"And that's us, right?" she asked, and he didn't know if it was that she was speaking into his shirt, or if she just didn't make sense.

"Us what?"

"Well how do we know that we're the 'real ones'? For all we know it's them who are these actual people, and we're going to fade away as soon as they're in their world again." He honestly had not thought about that… It wasn't completely unscary as most thoughts went.

"I feel pretty real to me, don't you think?" he hoped to make her smile… and he did. He hadn't realized how long he'd been wanting to see it again. "You can't worry about it so much… You might miss something important," he nodded.

"Like how you're hugging your not-girlfriend right here?" she pointed out, and he caught himself, almost wanted to back away, but then… It was something else he really wanted to do. He looked up at her, and he saw her face change. "Jesse?" she asked, nervous, and it made him smirk before he leaned in and gently kissed her. With plenty of warning it still took a moment for her to get over the shock, but then she responded to the kiss, letting the stress just float on away…

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!