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 52nd cycle. Now cycle 53!

THIRD ANNIVERSARY CYCLE: It's late October again, and within this cycle I will be completing my third year of daily gleekathon stories and commencing a fourth! As in previous years, this means special things happening. I've selected my favorite stories from throughout the year, and I'll be treating them to something special. In previous years this included Prequel, Sequel, and POV Swap, and then Additional Scenes and Alternate Endings. This year I'm adding two new treatments: Genre Swap (I think that's pretty straightforward) and Element Change (I change one thing in the story, see how it affects the rest). Note that in both these cases and some of the others, there may excerpts directly transferred from the story it references. Also, since this year saw the addition of 'shift days', and since I suck at picking, I have selected 42 stories, to be treated two per day! So here we go!

This story is a Prequel to Troika, a Trinity series story, originally posted from June 14 to July 4 2012.

This is a double shift day. There will be one more upload today: Flashlight Story.

"I'd Call It Our Miracle"
(Older) Santana (& Brittany, Quinn) - Brittana
Trinity series extra
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

Two days ago, they had been wrapping up a job in Colorado. As the agreement had been, since they had started talking about and prepared and attempted for the conception of a child, she was bound to the van while Quinn and Brittany were in the building and she could hear them over her earpiece. It was at some point, being stuck there, that she'd started having her suspicions. It wasn't like any regular old thing, not an unplanned pregnancy, or even a "we're trying" pregnancy, that they were after. It had involved a doctor's office, and equipment, and then lots of hope. The suspicion, there in that van, was that perhaps it had worked.

It was their second attempt. The first had not taken. They had known, going into this, that it could happen, that it might take more than one try. Still, finding out that it hadn't worked, they had needed a few weeks to move past it and think of what their next step was. Finally they had gone in with this second attempt, and as much as she herself was closing her eyes and hoping beyond hope that everything would work out, she could see Brittany was going through the same thing. When they had gotten home from the doctor's that day, and they'd gotten into bed, she had felt her wife's hand climb over her side, fingers grazing at her stomach, passing on energy, love, anything that could spur on the little nothing to become a little something, and Santana had closed her eyes, joining her silent pleading with a smile. This had carried on every night since, and maybe for good reason.

They had come back home this morning though, and Santana was relieved to know that the 'was she or wasn't she' mystery would end. She'd had no time to herself to go hunting down a test, and even then as much as the possibility that she could presently be pregnant was rumbling her stomach, knowing yes or no for certain would have thrown her off, and Brittany and Quinn as well. They couldn't mess this job up, so she had waited. The night before, resting in their hotel bed, she'd felt Brittany's hand at her stomach again, and thinking that there might actually be a baby in there now had brought her very near to tears. She'd almost told her right then, but she had decided to wait until she'd know for sure, so not to get her hopes up for nothing, especially after last time.

Now here she was, and she would know before long. They had barely made it home that morning, but Brittany had still gone in to work at the clinic, and Quinn had stopped off to visit a few people. Santana wasn't due to work at the bar that day, which was just as well. After the two of them had headed off, she had waited a solid hour or so before she couldn't take it anymore and had to go down and get the test. She had argued with the clerk as to the best choice they might have, and with how aggravated she had made her, she wasn't going to bother this time. Still, unable to make up her mind, she had decided to go all in, trusting her gut, and bought four of them.

It felt like she should have taken that many, like each one of them stood for something. One for those two girls in Lima, Ohio, one of them too scared to say anything for so long… One for those same girls, now in Boston, who had stuck together no matter what life threw at them… One for them now in New York, taking on this strange and messed up life together with their old friend… And one for December 31st, the day they had joined their lives together, with promises of moments just like this… Maybe she was just being hormonal already.

But she had done everything as she was meant to, and she had done her waiting, and finally it was time to take a look. Her hand had gone to her stomach for a moment, if only to hold on to this feeling a few seconds longer, in case she found she had gotten it all wrong.

Every last one of those tests was giving her a pink circle, or two lines, or a plus sign, however she looked at it, there was no denying… they were having a baby.

She sat there for a while, too shocked and amazed with the news. Once upon a time she never would have imagined that she could have this, least of all with the girl she loved, but now everything had changed. She wasn't carrying just any child, she was carrying Brittany's child, and that was almost more than she could handle. They were going to be a family. Their lives were all going to change, they knew, but being faced with the reality of it was the strangest and the best feeling.

She thought about telling her, getting to tell her, and she couldn't believe how beside herself she was. She would do it face to face, but at this moment she needed to hear her voice, and it gave her an idea. So she picked up the phone and dialled. The receptionist made her hold for a minute and then…

"Hey, what's going on?" Brittany asked as she came on the line, thinking perhaps that there was something wrong. It was a good thing she couldn't see the smile that came on her face right then.

"Nothing, I was wondering how you'd feel a movie night, you and me and Quinn, tonight?"

"Oh, I'll get ice cream," was her way of saying yes.

"I'll run it by Quinn and start looking at what movies to…"

"Comedy, put a comedy," Brittany begged.

"I will do that," Santana promised with a smirk.

When they'd hung up, she gathered up the tests and hid them, picked up the trash… The evening couldn't come fast enough. She had it all worked out. Brittany would come home, and Quinn, and all three of them would start getting ready for their first movie. Then she would ask Brittany if she could get her favorite blanket from their room, and when she would pick it up, underneath she would find the four tests, all lined up and announcing that they were about to be parents.

It would be perfect, just she wait… As soon as Brittany came home…

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!