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 41st cycle. Now cycle 42!

INTRODUCING "CHEAT SHEET" - If you want to know ahead of time when a certain series will be updated next, just reassemble the link below and check out the list, save it, print it, bookmark it, whatever you need!
Go to: gleekathon [dot] tumblr [dot] com [slash] cheatsheet

** UPDATED WITH CYCLE 42 CHEAT SHEET **

Countdown cycle #4 - Yes, it's that time again, where I select 16 favorite things (characters, ships, friendships...) from Glee and give them each a ficlet, and a chapter fic for #1. The previous countdown cycles, if you want to check them out, were c10 [days 190-210], c25 [days 505-525], and c29 [days 589-609]. Like the last countdowns, the #1 story is split in 3 blocks, the chapters posted on Tuesdays and Wednesdays over these three weeks, with #16 to #2 from Thursdays to Mondays.
Coming in at #7...

"Shiny Happy Girl"
Rachel, Quinn, Finn, Puck, and Daughter ;)
Sunshine Girls #42 (following 'Downed Sun')

When she had first seen the book, she couldn't even read yet. But she saw the four letters etched on the cover and she knew it was her name, which made her happy. It told her that it belonged to her, just as much as it belonged to them.

She had four parents, loved them all, blood or no, because they were all she'd ever known. Technically though, there was her mother and her stepfather, and her father and her stepmother… She made no distinction. Mom and Dad, Mom and Dad…

The first pair, her mother and stepfather, lived in Lima full time. They lived in an apartment in the same building where this old teacher of theirs lived. Mr. Schuester had moved out since then, but he'd helped them get the place, from what she knew, and she remembered when she smaller, being at his place with him and his wife, Emma. They'd moved out the summer before, shortly before they'd had their baby, to live in their new house. Her parents wanted a house, too, but they didn't have enough money yet, they told her. That was okay though, she liked this place.

Then there was the second pair, her father and stepmother. Their situation was just a bit more complicated. When they were in Lima, for now, they lived with her grandfathers, her stepmother's dads. Her grandfathers Berry were so good to her and she loved being with them, though both her mothers would chastise them at times for spoiling her. They just made innocent faces, which made her giggle. When they were in Lima, she would alternate living with her mother and her father, week to week, but then there was the other thing… her stepmother was a rising star of the Broadway stages…

When she'd have a role, both her and her dad would be living there, so it would go from alternating weeks to alternating two, three weeks, sometimes a month. Deep down she wondered if they would just stay in New York permanently, if it wasn't for her and having to share her with her mother and stepfather. She was used to going from one to the other, so maybe that made it easier for her, although it didn't mean she didn't miss one mom and dad when she was with the other. They told her that when she'd start school, things would probably have to change, that if her stepmother got a role and they headed up to New York again, she wouldn't be able to go with them.

It was around that that time when her stepmother had come over and her mother had pulled a box from the closet in her room. From there, she'd pulled out a large book and placed it in her daughter's lap once the girl was sat on the bed between her mothers. She could already feel that they were sharing something with her, something that was all theirs.

Already just at the cover she was in amazement, seeing the large sun traced in gold, along with her mother's name, her stepmother's name… and her name. She'd spelled it out, prodding the letters, and then she'd looked to the two of them on either side of her, smiling. So that day she had learned of those superheroes relentlessly spreading joy… the All-Mighty Sunshine Girls.

She had perused the whole book and had been amazed by the whole thing. It was then that she'd really come to understand the way her four parents had been weaving this sort of interconnected life for years and years, since they were her age. Already seeing that they could all have been small like her was something her six-year-old mind found absolutely astounding, but looking at her mother in those pictures, she could see it, even if they told her she had her grandmother's blue eyes.

Once she could get over the oddity of one's parents as children her age and even younger, she was just excited… They had been friends, all this time ago! They'd had… adventures, and they liked to make people happy. She felt like they were… her, like she'd taken something from each of them both. But still there was something they shared, something that was all of theirs… music.

She would go and be with her stepfather some days while he worked at the shop, fixing cars. She would sit there, on the stool, where she was meant to stay 'for her safety' as he'd say. Even then, whenever he could, he'd let her get closer, hold or hand him things. Sometimes he would pick her up and let her see what he was doing, pointing out this and that, explaining what it was. She generally didn't understand, though after a while she'd remember, and when she showed that she did remember, it made him smile.

But the best was the singing. The radio was always on, and then a song would come on and she could see him, even from her stool, how he smiled. "Sing, Dad!" she'd call out, and so he would. If it was a song she'd heard enough to know the lyrics, she would sing, too… and then he'd really smile.

Her mother was balancing school and work on top of caring for her. From what she knew, her mother had been in high school when she was born, and after she'd finished there, she had gone about continuing at college at a slower pace. When she'd asked her why, her mother had said she didn't care if it took her longer than most people: she didn't want to miss out on seeing her or being there for her because of other obligations. She came first.

The music she associated with her mother was her lullabies. She could know even without being expected to remember everything, every day, that every night she'd spent in her mother's home was closed the soft sound of her voice singing her to sleep. She didn't have to worry for a bad dream, or any sort of danger out there, knowing there was her mother.

She had lullabies with her stepmother, too, but it didn't have nearly the same meaning as it did with her mother. But then her stepmother, she was something amazing all on her own. She'd say that there were two of her. In Lima, she was just plain old Mom. On her weeks, she'd come get her school, and they'd walk home, hand in hand, and she would want to know everything about her day, no detail was insignificant to her, she wanted to know it all, and so she did.

But then there was New York Mom… She loved Lima, but every time they would head back to New York, she couldn't wait to get there. She remembered the first time she'd gotten to go and see her on stage. It was almost two years ago, she knew, because she'd been four. She'd gotten to put on her best dress, and her best shoes, and there was a ribbon in her blonde hair. She'd sat there, with her father next to her and then the lights had come up and her eyes had opened with them, glued to the stage. And then her stepmother had come out there, and she'd started to sing… She remembered how enthralled she'd been, seeing her… She didn't know to express it in so many words, but there was this whole new breath in her stepmother when she was on stage. The applause at the end had scared her a bit and her father had grabbed her hand. Once he did, she calmed, started to look around. "She was good!" she had declared, figuring all this was for her stepmother. Her father had smiled and told her that yes, she was.

Her father was her hero. They all were, in their own rights, but none of them could cheer her up the way he could. He'd hold her in such a way when she cried that she just felt being in his arms was the safest place she could be. And he could make her laugh the best, too. He could make her fly, and if she said 'let's have a tea party,' then he was her man. There was so much kindness in him – and this was the case for her stepfather as well – that she'd found it hard to believe the way the two of them had been 'enemies' to the Sunshine Girls. She'd hear stories, of how he 'used to be,' but she didn't care… he was her hero.

And he had his guitar. She would watch him play, sing… She knew he did 'gigs' in clubs and bars when they were in New York, though she was too young to go. They'd film it though, so she could see after. The way she sat and watched it on the television screen, it was as though she'd actually been there, with how she cheered. One of her biggest dreams was some day to go and see him in person.

Her other big dream, made only bigger by the discovery of the Sunshine Girls, was one she'd thought to be simple until they'd told her otherwise… She wanted a baby sister, or more even. It wasn't like she was lonely, between Mom and Dad, and Mom and Dad, and her grandfathers, and her grandmother, and her other grandmother, and her other grandmother and grandfather, and everybody else… But she thought it would be fun to have sisters. Now maybe they could be Sunshine Girls together. After all, it was kind of a family business in the end.

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!