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 54th cycle. Now cycle 55!

Favorites cycle - It's that time again, where I gather a list of my fifteen favorite characters, relationships, friendships, etc of the moment! It's constantly evolving, and if I did it over today, as the list was selected weeks ago, it would already be different. But oh well, there'll be later opportunities ;) So then, here we go!
At number 11 - series

"The Story Of Us"
AU!Jesse/AU!Quinn (& AU!New Directions)
series (pre jumps, follows 'Follow me to the Cabaret')
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

It didn't feel the way it used to, going into the coach's office and telling her what was happening in Glee Club. Now she was starting to feel like she was letting people down, hurting them when she didn't want to. But she had done it, she'd gone into that office with Santana and told Coach Sylvester how the 'minorities unrest' happening in the choir room. Before she knew it, their club was split in two, half of them heading off with the coach, while she and Jesse, along with Finn, Brittany, and Puck, stayed with Mr. Schuester. He had called her and Jesse up to sing, hardly something out of the ordinary by this point.

But then something had happened during that song, while they stood facing one another, him and her. She'd looked to Jesse, and it was as though she couldn't breathe anymore… She was looking at him, into those eyes, and she felt… She didn't know what to call it just yet, but what was for certain to her is that she had gone and started developing feelings for the guy… It had distracted her so much that she'd forgotten about the line the coach had fed her, to speak aloud and cause the others to feel abandoned, like they didn't matter to Schuester.

In the end, when the club had reunited as one, she had actually been relieved. The coach wasn't nearly as pleased, but Quinn didn't care at this point. She had a boyfriend she did care for, but then there was the other boy, the one she was starting to feel for, in a way that was very different from Finn… If that wasn't enough, then there had been Puck.

She had no idea where it had come from, but one day in Glee Club he had stood up there with his guitar, started to sing… It had not taken long for Quinn – and the rest of the club – to notice that this song was aimed at her. She'd try not to meet his eye, but she'd feel his gaze on her, and the intent was very clear, unmistakable to most. It had gone over Finn's head, and if Jesse had caught on to the 'wooing in progress', he wasn't showing any sign of it. Quinn, for her part, could only smile nervously. She didn't know what would possess Puck to do something like this, if he just wanted to mess with her – she wouldn't put that past him – but either way she wasn't going to play into it.

The inexplicable events had carried on in following days, when Coach Sylvester had just up and kicked her off the Cheerios. She knew she'd do that from time to time, kick girls out, but her… she was the captain, that couldn't be, there had to be a reason… As much as she'd tried to find it though, she couldn't… and all she could do was try and rise again.

The next few weeks had been hard, but when Mr. Schuester had tasked them with a bake sale to raise money for a bus to Sectionals, she had welcomed the distraction. She had gone into the home economics kitchen to see about baking up some cupcakes, only to have Puck appear there. He'd offered to help her, and as much as she felt like she should have taken this chance to get to the bottom of what he was up to lately, she had told him she didn't need any assistance and could do it on her own. He'd looked at her like he really needed her to reconsider, and he was growing ever so closer to her, which made her nervous, not for the reasons he would have hoped, she guessed.

Before she could tell him anything though, Finn had come along, which had put a pin in whatever plan Puck might have had. He'd booked out of there, and that was it, or so she thought. When the day of the bake sale had come, Jesse and her had been sat side by side, and there he had asked her ever so casually about her and Puck in the kitchen. She hadn't even seen him, but apparently he'd seen them. As before, he had given the casual approach, not wanting to seem more curious than he should, even if she could see right through him at this point. She had told him the truth, whether it was owed to him or not, that nothing had happened with Puck, as nothing would happen.

She could see what was happening though, or at least it all became clearer as the days went by. When Puck had presented the money from the bake sale to Mr. Schuester, for all of Glee Club to see, now she could only connect the dots… Puck was trying to get in her good graces. As all of them had started leaving the auditorium though, she had stuck back, when she'd seen Jesse was sticking back. She probably shouldn't have, should have carried on her way and not thought about it any further, but…

"Look, I'm sorry," he'd said when he saw she was staying back.

"About what?" she asked, moving toward him. He looked aside, like he was shy all of a sudden, and she smirked. "About how you got all territorial the other day?" she tested, and he looked back at her.

"I wasn't…" he started, but she gave him a look and he sighed. "I don't know what came over me."

"I'm pretty sure I know," she told him, and he looked like he might bolt. "You know you talk a big game for a guy who can't even be honest about something like this. It's no big deal…"

"No, but it is," he shook his head. "I shouldn't…"

"What if you could?" she told him. "Just for… ten seconds, if you could be exactly who you wanted to be, without any sort of regr…" She looked down when she felt his hand on hers, and when she looked back up, she was seeing right into his eyes.

"That's ten already…" he told her.

"Take another ten," she breathed. And then he'd kissed her.

No doubt he took her offer to him of those seconds very seriously at first. They had both gone on their way and they hadn't spoken of it again, not for a few more days, not until Glee Club had come along, and the word of the week was ballads. As they'd been matched off, they could feel it coming, even before it ever did. Mr. Schuester had put out the hat, called them up… The names were going by and theirs had yet to go. In the end, it was even worse than they would have imagined. Due to an uneven number situation, it had become that Quinn would be performing two duets, one with Jesse… and one with Puck.

She'd met up with Jesse after rehearsal, with their intent on discussing their duet… But then instead she had felt an urge and met it. She kissed him, not even a little shyly. He'd been taken by surprise at first, she could feel, but then it hadn't taken long for him to move past that and respond. She didn't even know why she'd done it… She wanted it, of course she knew that part, but still… There was something that should have held her back, and it didn't.

Only then she'd thought she'd heard something, and she'd leapt out of his arms, looking around. There was nothing. Still when she'd looked back to him, she found he looked wounded by her reaction. He'd walked off, and she'd been left there on her own. She had huffed out of the room after a beat, not angry with him but with herself. When she'd run into Puck on the way, just as eager to work on their duet, she had blown him off.

As it was, these were not the first knots tied to her stomach that week. She already had one, as brought on by her parents requesting they meet 'this boyfriend of hers' by inviting Finn over to dinner. He had been sour from the moment he had found he would be sharing his ballad assignment with Kurt, while she would be spending it with his two best friends. Even as they sat to dinner, him and her and her parents, he was discussing the assignment with her mother and father.

But her mind was elsewhere, gone to the room where she'd stolen away for a kiss with Jesse. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't deny that he had gone and taken up residence in her thoughts. It wouldn't have been so much of a problem if not for the fact that she knew she shouldn't have been doing it, shouldn't have been thinking about him while she was here, sitting to dinner with her boyfriend and her parents. And if it had been just a silly flirtation that meant nothing, she might have still felt rotten, but there would have been no conflict. Except there was more to it than that, and she knew it.

Maybe it was that this was still running through her mind by the time she and Jesse had performed their ballad to the club, because when she'd looked to him, the upset he'd felt over her jumping away from him days earlier was gone… and they were okay.

This had led to more encounters, the two of them in secret. As time went on though, they both knew they had to talk about the one thing they were both sidestepping. Finally one day they had not reached to one another as they would. Instead they had talked, about him… Finn, her boyfriend, his best friend… Neither of them wanted to hurt him, that much was clear, but they knew, whether they wanted to or not, it wouldn't make any difference. He would be hurt all the same. They couldn't just walk away, it was too late for that. At the very least, they couldn't keep doing what they were doing, not on school grounds.

It was around that same time that Quinn had had to deal with Santana coming at her, telling her to stay away from 'her man.' When she'd finally managed to figure out she meant Puck, Quinn had frowned and told him she wasn't getting anywhere near him, and that her issue was with Puck, not her. After leaving Santana, she had gone to Puck, annoyed, asking what he'd been telling her, telling him that they were not together. He'd looked confused, but she'd walked away.

After that, despite the promise they'd made one another about not doing anything at school, Quinn had needed one moment away from insanity, which had led her back to Jesse. They'd been so worried about being caught, and yet when it did happen, they hadn't noticed. Only it wasn't Finn who had spotted them. It was Santana, and she had taken this information right along to Coach Sylvester. Sue had considered what she had just learned and, rather than unleashing it now, had decided to sit on it, keeping it for when it might come in handy.

That occasion had come about as the time had arrived for them to take pictures for the Thunderclap. Already both Quinn and Jesse were feeling cornered when it was revealed they could only get two people in the Glee Club picture, and it soon became that they had been chosen. Quinn had gone and seen Mr. Schuester, hoping to have him reconsider, but she'd left the choir room still as one half of the club's picture. It wasn't that she wouldn't want to be in that picture, with him, but with the secret they held, it just would have been wrong on so many levels.

At the same time, seeing her former fellow Cheerios preparing for their pictures had stirred the coals of a fire she'd thought long extinguished. She still wasn't over the way the coach had inexplicably kicked her off the squad, and part of her still wanted back on it. When she had gone to confront the coach though, Sue had met her request with a claim that she had 'made her choice.' When she'd revealed she knew about her and Jesse, Quinn had put on a good show of denying it, but it didn't matter. The coach had still given her a choice: she could have her picture, her spot on the squad, or she could have her secret. If she chose the first, it meant her secret coming out, hers and Jesse's. She didn't want that for him, and especially for Finn, who still didn't know. So she had chosen her secret.

She knew it had to come to an end soon, it was fair to no one, and she didn't like it. But then within a few days, all that had been taken out of her hands.

It hadn't taken long for her to figure out how the coach had found out the truth, even then she wouldn't have expected her to let it out, and she hadn't… not exactly. Santana hadn't made it public, but she'd told one… who told another… and then another… on and on until it had reached the wrong ear, until it had reached Finn. Quinn had just left Jesse after stopping to speak with him at his locker, when she heard a grunt, a cry… and she turned back to find Jesse struggling on the ground with Finn on top of him.

"What are you doing? Get off!" she'd screamed, trying somehow to see if there was a way for her to intervene. Within seconds though, Finn had been pulled away. He'd said nothing. He'd looked at her, and she knew that he knew. She wanted to say something, but she was just stunned, unable to think. He'd walked away, and seeing the faces of her friends from Glee Club, she knew they knew as well. She didn't mind them, instead crouching to help Jesse. "Are you okay?" she touched his forehead, careful.

"Yeah, I… I'm fine," he breathed. He looked up at her, and all of a sudden it just didn't matter that they weren't hiding. There was nothing left to hide from, people would know.

"I'm sorry… I should have told him before," she shook her head.

"It's not like I said anything to him either," he pointed out, and she sighed, offering him her hands. She helped him up, and he looked down to her, breathing out.

"Come on, I'll take you to the nurse." As they'd gone down the hall, she had looked over her shoulder, feeling… There was Puck, looking back at them. She guessed he'd know, too.

Sectionals had been rocky, no way around it. On the way home, they just thought about all of it. Finn had still come with them, though he was understandably upset at both of them. Puck had backed him up on this, and as much as Quinn could think about the fact that he was as much Finn's best friend as Jesse was and he'd been trying to do the same thing as him, she wouldn't sell him out on it. All that would do was create more hurt.

Jesse had been worried this would mean the end of them, she could tell. But as he'd dropped her off, she had gently kissed him, promising that no matter what happened with everyone else, he still had her.

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!