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 62nd cycle. Now cycle 63!
"In Plain Sight of All"
(gen!2 world) G1!Quinn/Jesse, G2!Mike, Mrs Chang
Berry-St series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)
She'd been so busy, trying to wrap her mind around what this version of the world had done to her friends in Glee Club that it had been almost impossible to stop and think about him in all this. Jesse had been thrown into this as much as she had, only he didn't have a place in this version of McKinley, and up until now he'd been pretty much living inside his car, trying not to be seen. She would sneak him into her house when her mother wasn't there or when she'd gone off to sleep, but they knew it could only last so long. They had to find him a place to stay, and they had to find him something to do.
"I had a couple of ideas," Quinn told him, putting together some of the leftovers they had for dinner. Jesse didn't have to be told twice and he got to eating.
"What kind of ideas?" he asked, and he took the look she gave him as a reminder to swallow his food before speaking. "Sorry," he told her.
"You can't keep living like this," she sighed.
"You're telling me," he took another bite.
"I think we should talk to Mrs. Chang, see if she might be able to let you stay with them. She knows about what's going on, so I'm sure she'd be willing to help.
"Won't her husband wonder why she's suddenly housing some guy he doesn't know?"
"She can think of something… Can you do some kind of accent, maybe say you're a foreign exchange student?" she tried.
"I'm not going to lie about who I am," he shook his head. "One of us is going to make a mistake eventually and we won't know how to get out of it."
"Yeah, that's true. Well then, you be yourself, and this sort of goes into my other idea, which is you should get a job at McKinley," she smiled.
"Seriously?" he blinked.
"You've graduated high school here, and if you're not in college… We need to get the Glee Club back on track, don't we? That's the plan, to get us home? You're some show choir big shot in this world, it'll be perfect. You get in there… and you help Mr. Schuester, and the rest of the club, and then with time we could make this happen for all of them."
"It sounds solid, but… What kind of job am I supposed to get over there? I haven't been to college, I'm no teacher…"
"You don't have to be, so long as you're in the school," she promised.
"Wait, I'm not going to be a lunch… guy or anything, am I? I don't need to know what goes on back there, it's better off remaining a mystery."
"You could work in the drama department, that would be right up your alley."
"I can look into it," he finally agreed. "We'll need to deal with this Chang thing first, if I'm going to be applying for a job. I'll need an address."
Early next morning, the two of them had gone off to the Chang house. They waited until Mr. Chang left before going up to the door and ringing the bell.
Mrs. Chang had welcomed them into the living room, telling them how Mike was still upstairs getting ready for school and that she would go let him know they were there.
"Actually, we wanted to talk to you," Quinn revealed, and the woman paused, surprised.
"Me?"
"We need your help." The tone in her voice left no place to wonder what this was about.
"Have you… Have you found a way to get my son back? I mean…" she breathed. "My other… My Michael," she clarified.
"Yes and no," Quinn replied. "Jesse here, he's one of us, he travelled like Mike and I did. He doesn't have anywhere to go, his counterpart here went to a school in Akron, and he's graduated already. We need him here, to help us all go back where we're supposed to be."
"I don't understand… What does this have to do with me?"
"He's got nowhere to go, if he wants to stay in Lima. I can't have him stay at my house, my mother will ask too many questions. He's been living in his car since we got here. We were hoping… We were thinking maybe, if it was alright with you, maybe he could stay here, with your family. You already know about what's happening…"
"Please," Mrs. Chang jumped in, and Quinn let her speak. "You will help?" she asked the boy.
"I want to go back as much as you want him to return," Jesse vowed. Mrs. Chang stood, thinking.
"My husband doesn't know…"
"We were hoping to keep it that way, actually," Quinn nodded. The woman looked at her. "We know it's a lot to ask, but…"
"He's been talking about bringing someone in, to help with Michael. I can tell him I've hired you, he'll pay, and we can put you up."
"You don't have to p…" Jesse insisted.
"But we will," Mrs. Chang insisted right back. "It's the least we can do."
After leaving the Chang house, they had gone on to McKinley. Quinn and Mike had watched Jesse go in to see Principal Figgins, waiting nervously. Mike had been all too happy to have Jesse come in to live with them this way, if it meant he wouldn't get some stranger forced on him.
It had been some time before Jesse emerged from the office, and the look on his face was not so easily read. "What happened, did you get the job?" Quinn asked.
"I did…" he started, and she breathed out. "I got a job," he placed the emphasis on 'a.'
"Drama department?" she blinked.
"No. Janitorial," he declared, and she had to hold on real tight not to start laughing. "I guess it makes sense though, right? It'll be like in the movies, the janitor who's secretly an angel, sent to fix up people's lives or something?"
"The uniform will look good on you," she tried to encourage and he frowned.
"It'll get me through the door. That's all I need."
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!
