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 63rd cycle. Now cycle 64!

"Not Yours To Judge"
Sue (& Brittany), Will, Emma
Sylvesters series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

She had known this would happen. Whether she liked it or not, she'd been keeping this great big secret right under everyone's noses, her, Sue Sylvester. After all that she'd put them through, now they had something on her, and they couldn't have asked for more.

The first day she walked back into McKinley after she knew for certain that the secret had reached mass distribution, there was no way of escaping the attention. She knew it had been her intent, that the secret hadn't simply slipped out but she'd allowed it to go on its way, but for what it had meant, all these eyes on her felt like intruders.

The whispers were following her as well. The student body was one thing. No matter what, she still held the power with them, and they would scurry away when she looked in their direction. But then there were the others… the faculty. You would have thought they were the kids here, all of them, and a juicy piece of gossip had just been put out there for them to sink their teeth into.

Eventually they would start making their voices heard, right to her face. They would tell her that what she'd done to 'that poor child' was despicable, they would ask her if she was ashamed of her in some way. Sue faced each comment and each question with the same glare. She wasn't going to indulge them. She knew why she had kept that secret with Brittany, and it was absolutely none of their business, especially if they were going to throw it in her face.

She could have taken some time off, stayed at home to help look after her still hailing daughter, but she knew if she did that, all it would look like would be a woman who was hiding. That wasn't going to be her, because she had nothing to be ashamed about.

With the days, she had kept her steel exterior, warding off anyone stupid enough to try and approach her. The only time she had allowed it down had been outside of the school, when she and Brittany had attended Doris Sylvester's funeral. But now she was back at work, and that meant no one was getting through.

"Sue? Can we sit?" She looked up from her clipboard, sitting in the faculty lounge, and found Emma Pillsbury and Will Schuester standing on the other side of her table.

"Don't you have anything better to do?" she asked, trying to ignore them.

"Look," Will started with a sigh.

"Don't think I've forgotten about how you got my kid in the hospital, Schuester."

"It was an accident and you know it," Will defended himself, but Emma stopped him.

"How's Brittany doing?" Emma asked.

"As well as you can expect," Sue told them, then after a beat. "You're not going to leave me alone, are you?" she guessed.

"We're not here to say anything against you," Emma assured her. "You've been all on your own these past few days. I can't imagine you'll have been able to talk about what you've been through to anyone." Sue looked up at her. "I mean, with your… your daughter in the hospital and all." Sue let out a breath, taking off her glasses and motioning for the two to sit.

"She's home now, and once she rests, she'll be back. If I send her to you again, you'll keep her in one piece?" Sue asked Will.

"You have my word," he promised.

"I know…" Sue conceded. "I give you a lot of… well, some words I wouldn't say here, but I've given put you through the ringer. I know you care about Brittany, and… she cares about you, too." There was a beat of silence, but Will bowed his head.

"Thank you, Sue." Emma sat forward.

"I have to ask…"

"Of course you do," Sue stared at her, and the redhead blushed.

"This is just a lot to take, not only the fact that you have a child, and that this child is Brittany, and none of us knew a thing…"

"Santana knew. Quinn, too. Not that I knew… that they knew," Sue frowned, working out the split.

"We're just wondering…"

"I knew even before she was born, she wasn't going to be like me, that she was going to be better. And I knew that if my mother ever found out about her granddaughter, then this precious little girl was going to be corrupted. I did what I had to do, for her. Brittany has always known two things, that I was her mother, and that I loved her more than any other living being. To her, that was enough… for the most part. The rest is just details, got it?" The message was clear: don't push your luck. Will had been sufficiently placated, while Emma looked like she was on the verge of tears, touched to hear Sue speak of her daughter in this way.

"It'll all blow over," Will promised, looking around the faculty lounge. Even now, all eyes were on their table. Whether they'd been listening in as well, they couldn't say. "It's like with the rest of them out there. Big news comes out, and they get on it, but then either they get bored or something else comes along, and they forget."

"Yeah, well, they can't forget fast enough, if you ask me," Sue bowed her head. Part of her felt weak and exposed and she didn't like it. But then she had these two sitting with her, people whose care and support she would never imagine she had ever earned. Still, they were here, and they would be with her, through all of it. She had spent all these years keeping private, because she needed to. Now things had changed and, as hard as it would seem at first, she had to open herself up again. This was as much for her daughter's sake as it was for her own personal sake.

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!