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 80th cycle. Now cycle 81!

"All Together Now"

in gen2!world: G1!Quinn, G2!New Directions

Berry-St series

(All series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

That first day, when they'd sat in the choir room, twelve of them with their director before them, all Quinn had been able to see was how much closer they'd gotten to making it home. They had found that place in their hearts where the possibility of Glee Club hadn't been completely snuffed out, and that was something big.

Then on their first proper period together, she'd had something of a rude awakening, seeing how twelve people and a director did not make a choir all on its own. All it did was bring thirteen people together, plenty of them with issues to deal with, be it on their own or with one or more of those in the room with them. They were all present, yes, but they were a mess.

The personality clashes had been a headache all of their own. Some of them may have been from a world where they'd had their Glee Club for some time already, where they'd gotten to know each other, but whatever friendship had united them there, in this place, where everything was new and uncertain, those new battles resurfaced fresh and unruly. This one wanted a solo, this one thought they deserved it more... Quinn could see it snowballing, see those of them who were holding on to grievances being pumped up by the arguing, until they were near enough to bursting and airing out their own issues.

The animosity between Puck and Finn looked ready to raze the whole of McKinley and a good portion of Lima itself. Having seen three versions of those two, it seemed they could never escape some kind of scuffle, and she always tended to be in the middle, polarizing the entire conflict.

In her own world, Puck had had a thing for her, even when she was dating Finn, but nothing had ever happened... because at the same time she'd been slowly but surely falling for Jesse. Finn had known somehow that Puck was in the mix, but when the affair had been revealed, the two friends had been instead banded together, Finn being upset with her, as well he should have been, and Puck standing by his side.

Then in that other world, the one where her Jesse had first been thrown, before she'd been swapped as well, there had been the baby. That counterpart had cheated on Finn, too, slept with Puck, got pregnant. When it had been revealed, from what she'd heard, it had come to blows between the two friends, put a dent in their friendship big enough to potentially part them forever.

And here... Here, the story had started the same, the affair, the pregnancy... It had forced her to take a good long look at herself, realizing that three separate versions of herself had cheated on the same boyfriend. Was it who she was, or did she really just not want to be with Finn Hudson?

The rift between Puck and Finn here was about something much bigger than an affair baby with her boyfriend's best friend. Here, there had been the accident. It was hard to have the pieces together without making them talk. Matt wasn't there to explain it, Mike, the one from the accident, was in another reality, and Puck... She had never seen him like this, in either of her previous encounters with a version of him. She'd seen his attitude, seen how he behaved around people, around girls... He has always been the kind of guy the teachers and any number of adults would look to if something went wrong, and then he had that whole streak with the dumpster tossing and the Slushie throwing... This Puck was not so much interacting with people as he was repelling them. They were scared of him, and he made no effort to get them to think otherwise, which only made his presence among them that much more surprising. Mike had played a part in this, she knew, but even then...

And then Finn... He had never been That Guy, the football player, the popular guy, yes, but not the bully they would think him to be, especially being Puck's friend. He'd sort of let it all happen for a while, but she knew at heart he hated it. He hadn't been That Guy, not in her world, not in the other one either. But he was, in this world, and for what she'd been able to witness since she'd arrived, she knew it had to do with the accident. He hadn't been in that car, hadn't been anywhere near the scene, so what was it?

She had to find a way to make sure they didn't explode. If they did, they would either quit Glee Club or be kicked out of it. They needed those two, so somehow they would have to make it work.

They'd made it through that first rehearsal, thankfully, without any fists being thrown, and she had spent so much of that period sitting tense and anxious that, when it was over, her whole body seemed to hurt for having clenched so much.

They were a mess, a giant unforgiving mess. There was no way, in their current state, they could make it to any kind of competition, and they would sure as hell not get sent back to their own worlds this way. She had to stop, take a breath, remind herself that in no world had they started off performance ready. They had to keep working, and if she had to clench her way through a few more of these rehearsals, then she would just have to do it. They'd gotten too far to give up.

When she'd left the choir room, she'd found Rachel waiting for her. She must have sensed just how tense Quinn was, and as she held her hand out to her, she had that tender sort of 'hang in there' look about her like she wanted to take care of her girlfriend. Quinn let out a breath and followed her.

They passed Santana in the hall, and there was something strange about the way she stared at her and Rachel, but Quinn couldn't figure out why.

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!