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 49th cycle. Now cycle 50!

CYCLE 50 SPECIAL FAVORITES CHART - So I've done 'favorites' cycles before, and this is another one, but since it's cycle 50, I wanted to do something special for it. So instead of the usual top 16 with a 6-chapter Boston Britt installment for Brittany (who has always been and remains number one ;)), this is how it will be: It's shift days through the cycle. Shift B will be a 21-chapter/day Boston Britt. In shift A, after the first day's 'extra' dedicated to New Directions, there will be four Top 5 lists, working their way down (all the number 5 spots, all the number 4 spots, number 3, 2, and finishing with all the number one spots)

The Top 5's are as follows (all are my 'top 5 favorite...'):
* Top 5 Series (my series)
* Top 5 Friendships
* Top 5 Characters
* Top 5 Relationships

TODAY: Top 5 Characters: #1 - Brittany

This is a double shift day. There will be one more upload today: Those Are Wooden Wings, chapter 20.

"Of Neither Group"
Brittany

She didn't have a side to stand on. She hadn't realized it at first, really, but then when it did hit her, it was something like a ton of bricks.

She wasn't a graduating senior, and she wasn't a junior moving up to take their place. She was a non-graduating senior, who would move nowhere but stay in that place.

She had failed. She had made it through all the steps, and she'd been more than involved in everyone's senior year… Now the joke was on her, because they were moving on and she wasn't. She was a glorified party planner, giving them a send-off where she stayed behind.

She knew she'd made some mistakes, hadn't done certain things as she should, so that was her fault, she guessed. She'd just been going along with the flow, having fun with her friends, and just as they were all riding right out, she'd been brought to a sudden and jarring stop. She didn't have what it took to make it to the next leg of their journey. Now she had to go back and hope with all her might that she could find it.

She'd be a senior again, but she'd be different. In a crop of new seniors, she would be one of the very few who would stand out as an old senior. They would look at her and they'd know, she didn't belong there, not anymore. She was supposed to be gone, only she hadn't been smart enough so… she was still here. If there was ever a time where having experience in something wasn't necessarily a good thing, this was it.

She tried to look on the bright side, even if it was really more of a bright patch than an entire side. She would get one more year with some of her friends, one more year in Glee Club. If it had all been up to her performance in that field alone she would have been a top graduate, but it wasn't. She didn't want them to feel bad for her, not them or anyone, but them more than anything, because they were her friends.

But then some of them were leaving, some would be gone… Santana… Santana would be gone. She couldn't remember a time where she didn't have her there with her, and it just made her heart ache a bit to think that she'd have to go through this odd year all on her own. She was happy for her, she was. Santana should get to go out there and do things… She just wished she could go out and do those things with her…

And if all this wasn't enough, then there was another fear, one that she tried so hard to ignore even existed that, whenever she did find herself thinking about it again, it struck her as it would, had it been the first time.

What if she failed… again.

What if she went through that whole year again, only to get stopped at the exit gate all over again? There would go another batch of her friends, the rest of them, and she would be stuck there still? She'd be like the school joke… school mascot… Poor, poor Brittany, who was just too dumb to make it to graduation. She didn't like to use the D word, believed it and all the other words of that kind would only serve to bring her down, but if she flunked out of senior year a second time, would she really have any right not to get called those?

There were plenty of those who just skated by, scraping on the gate but still making it through. She couldn't even do that, so what if it happened again? She didn't want to let it happen again, she would fight. Next year, she didn't want to be left in a place where she couldn't sing with the seniors or the juniors again.

She was going to turn it right back around. She would take her unwanted little spotlight and she would shine. She'd be like one of those triumphant sob stories they turned into movies… She wasn't just sitting by, that wouldn't be right, no…

She was scared, yes, but then if she wasn't scared then that would be bad, wouldn't it? Then she definitely wouldn't make it out of there. She had to be serious about things, serious in ways she'd never been. Then at the end of that next year, maybe, it would be Santana, sitting there in the audience, cheering her on as she took her march, flipped her tassel… For now though, she would remain as she'd been… the cheerleader.

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!