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 86th cycle. Now cycle 87!

IT'S THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY CYCLE OF GLEEKATHON! - Five years! Five years! *insert flailing* Okay, not quite, but by the end of this cycle, it will have been five years of daily stories (sometimes twice a day! ... and for seven very frightening days a couple years back, three times a day!). It will also be the end of this crazy ride. I started thinking about ending gleekathon months ago, and I wanted to finish my ongoing series before that happened. It made it so I could finish out this fifth year, and it couldn't be any better that this cycle is actually ending on October 22nd 2014, which was the day it began, in 2009... Now here we go!

This story is a '1st person POV' for Open & Call, a Sunshine Girls 2 series story originally posted on June 20 2014.

"Daughter Next Door"
Nora (AU!Beth), Grace (OC), (older) Quinn/Finn
Sunshine Girls 2

1st person POV: Quinn

There had been times where I had wondered if Nora would turn into either of us. We were two very different people now, but we had been kids ourselves, when Puck and I had made her, and it was without a doubt that I spoke for him, too, when I said we didn't want her to turn into who we were. Glad as I was for having kept her, becoming a mother as young as I did was not something I would wish on to her. And Puck… He was no longer that angry boy he had once been, but there had been those tendencies in him that he did all he could not to foster into our girl. And she truly was the best of the two of us, and of Finn, and of Rachel, all rolled into one. Whatever faults she might have had were far outweighed.

When I called Tina to make sure Nora didn't leave anything behind after her sleepover and learned not only that she hadn't been there at all, but also that Emily had said she'd be sleeping at our house, for one split second I wondered… What was she up to?

Whatever it was, when I'd called Finn at school, he had promised me that Nora, and Emily, and Grace, were all three of them present and accounted for. So we decided to wait and ask her about where she'd been when she came home that afternoon… if she came home.

"Something's up with her," I told Finn. He was frowning, too.

"So let's ask her what it is."

I was the one to go and ask her to join us in the kitchen, and when she saw her stepfather there, her face screamed 'busted.'

"Where were you last night?" I asked, arms folded in. "Because I called Tina this morning to ask if you'd forgotten anything, which you tend to do, and it turned out you weren't there, no, she wanted to know where Emily was, and well, you can see where this is going, can't you?" If she lied to either of us, I would know, and she knew what would happen if she did. Her response was a reflex, and I could see the regret on her right away.

"You didn't call Grace's mom, did you?"

"No, I called him," I pointed to Finn, taking a step toward her. "He confirmed you were all at school this morning." She looked way too glad about this. What was she hiding? "Should I be calling Grace's mother?" I could understand her not wanting to get caught in a lie, same for her friends, but the way she looked at me, when I suggested calling Mrs. Mackenna… that was fear.

"No," Nora blurted out. I looked to Finn; he was starting to worry now, too.

"Nora, what's going on here?" he asked.

Whatever was going through her head, she had never looked so conflicted. She looked like she was about to cry, like she wanted to keep the words in just as much as she wanted to let them out. What secret could be so big to make her this way? I didn't want to force her hand, and neither did Finn, but if it really was this bad, could we really turn a blind eye?

"We stayed at Mom and Dad's house." When Nora said this, she had made her choice, to tell us the truth.

"What was this, a party or…" I tried to ask her, but she stopped me. She needed to say this.

"She wasn't at school yesterday. Grace, I mean…" So this was about Grace, I thought to myself, while Finn nodded. "She'd asked me to bring her homework, so I did that, but when I showed up she wouldn't answer the door, and when I called she didn't answer but I knew she was there, so I took the hide-a-key and…" What was that I was seeing in her eyes?

"Nora…" Something had shaken her hard.

"Night before last, she… she hit her." No… "Grace's mother hit her. She had a bruise just…"

No…

Of all things, the first image that came into my mind, maybe to keep Nora's revelation to get there, was of Grace Mackenna, the first time Nora brought her here to the house. She was eleven years old, with a shock of red hair and kind blue eyes. She was so very shy, but around Nora she brightened so much and it was easy to see they would get on like gangbusters. That was still them, even now that they were dating.

"Why didn't you just bring her here, we could have let her stay with us," I stepped closer to Nora.

"She didn't want people knowing, because of…" She paused. "Night before last, Grace told her mother about us. That's when it happened."

Suddenly the previous night, the lie about the sleepover, all made so much sense. And I realized something. We'd all made a mistake, Finn and I, and Puck and Rachel… We'd all been under the impression Adele Mackenna knew about her daughter's situation. We should have known better, we could have done something, helped her somehow… All I could feel now was that we'd let Grace down.

I looked to Finn. He looked upset, too, and like he wanted to do something. It was hard to put into words the way our daughter's best friends had both become part of us. We couldn't sit by and do nothing if either of them was in trouble, even if it was from her own mother.

"Where's Grace now?" I asked Nora.

"Back home."

"Is her mother back yet?"

"She should be, yes." That was all it took and Finn was heading out. Nora was right on his heels, and I was on hers. "Wait, what are you doing?" Finn wasn't stopping.

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm going to talk to her."

"No, but I promised her I wouldn't tell anyone… Dad, please." He turned for her.

"I know you mean well, but this is what it is, and if we know that Grace might be in trouble, we can't just ignore it. Just stay here, I'll be back in a bit."

After he'd left, I'd watched her go to the window. It was hurting her to have to sit this out, I could tell, but that was how it had to be, and I knew she knew that, too.

Truth was, I would have been over there if I could have. But this was where our similarities came on strong. I couldn't have been able to keep it together if I went across the street and came face to face with that woman, I would have lost it on her… and Nora would have, too, except that there was more at stake for her. This was the girl… this was the one she loved, and this was killing her; she thought it was her fault.

She went and sat on the couch, and she looked so small. "Mom, I promised…"

"I know you did."

"It's not like I'm trying to protect Mrs. Mackenna. I would have kept Grace away from that house with everything I had, but she wanted to go back. I hate… I hate that she has to be there, with her mother, feeling miserable. I just want her safe." I grasped her hand, sitting next to her, and she looked at me.

"She will be," I assured her. "Her family, unfortunately, is not this family…"

"It is, to me." I hadn't meant it that way. As much as we wanted to make the decisions, whatever they had to be, to get Grace where she needed to be, we had no say in the matter. All we could do was try and steer her in the right direction. Legally, we had nothing, but in our hearts… We had more daughters than the three under out roof.

"I know that, too," I gave her a smile, and Nora leaned to my shoulder. I wished I could tell her this would all be over soon, that it would end well, but I honestly didn't know.

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!