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 34th cycle. Now cycle 35!

YEAR TWO ANNIVERSARY CYCLE! - Within days it will have been two years since I've started this Gleekathon, and like last year I'm dedicating the cycle to commemorating my 21 favorite one shots or chapter stories from year two (up to the point where I did the planning ;)) A number of those I was very attached to, but left sad to see may have fallen through the cracks, so it seems fair they should get a second shot ;)

Last year there were three categories, but this year I've added two new ones: Prequel, Sequel, POV Swap, and now Alternate Ending, and Additional Scenes. In no particular order... Today's story is a Sequel to #445 "Chris & Carole Choose a Chair" a Hudson family story originally posted on January 9th 2011.

"Top of the World"
Young Finn & Carole

This was his fort. This was the place where he was mighty, where he could take in the sights of the world all around… living room, and kitchen, and out the windows… Here it didn't matter that he was a short sprout of four years. He had his bare little feet planted, short arms grasping on the back of the chair, and he was ready…

"Mom!" he called, trying to get the chair to turn in the direction of the kitchen, despite the fact he had no purchase on the ground to give himself motion. The chair gave slow tentative jerks until he could finally see his mother standing there, preparing lunch. "Mom!" he called again.

"Yes, Finn?" she called back, staring back.

"Spin me!" he begged, with one hop or two.

"We spoke about the jumping, didn't we?" Carole moved up to him, crouching enough to be eye to eye with him, putting her hands over his.

"Yes…" he moaned, pressing his forehead into the cushion.

"Finn…" she tried to get him to look up, but he wouldn't. "Finn…" she tried again, this time reaching a finger or two to tickle at the back of his neck, sitting there exposed. He twisted immediately, laughing.

"No, don't do that!" he still laughed, looking up at her, to protect his neck. She smiled back. "Now spin?"

"Alright, but not too hard, remember last time?" she asked, and he frowned.

"Got it," he swore, dragging his finger over his heart, like his uncle had shown him… like Christopher used to do… And it was as though she was finally seeing the chair… She saw… ghost images, of those precious weeks when her husband and son both shared this chair. It would happen, every now and again, and the chair would stop being just a chair. But then she'd look into her boy's eyes, that were so much like his father's, and she would smile, and she would give the push-off, much to Finn's approval. He wouldn't close his eyes, or fix his eyes to the ceiling, no… He wanted to see it all.

He was starting to understand more now, even if a lot of it was still too big for his mind to grasp. For the longest time, he didn't get what it meant… 'father.' It was a word. He heard it a lot, but as far as he knew it could have been anything. Dad… Daddy… It took a while before he understood that this was a person, one specific person, and worse that he didn't in fact have one. 'Your father was a good man,' they'd say. 'Your father was a hero.' 'Your father loved you, very much.' He had no sense of present, or past, and if there was such a person, a father that belonged to him and was all the things they said, then why wasn't he there? Why hadn't he ever seen him?

He had been pondering this, spinning on the chair as he would do, only he'd be sitting on it rather than standing. Finally he'd just let the chair come to a stop, and when he did he looked up to his mother, still standing there, and he'd asked her – 'Where's my dad?'

He would remember, all his life, the way his mother had come and picked him up, sat on the chair and rested him back on her knees, kept him steady in her arms, and told him about his father. She couldn't tell him all of it, not the whole truth… how could she? But she'd given him what she could, and at least now he knew… something. The thing he'd locked on to though, it was the story of the chair, the same one they were sitting on now. He'd always felt connected to it, and now he had more reason to do so.

He knew about heroes, but they were just the people he saw on television, cartoons, not real… but now he had his father, or part of him… He'd never met him, only knew little things, and if he had anything to give power to as being representative of who he was, well… it was the chair. And one day he had stood in front of it, staring up at it with resolve in his eyes. He grasped on to the soft leather, pulled himself up on to it and then carefully rose to his full height… however little that was. But it was enough. Holding to the back of the chair he could see overhead, all of it…

There was no keeping count on the time he could spend there. Most people would have gotten bored of it real quick… not him, not even close. He didn't need a reason, he just knew he felt happy there. Sometimes he would try too hard, spin too hard… he'd gotten sick once or twice, but that never kept him away. He'd always go back.

The day would come though, when he would grow, with one wicked of a growth spurt, and suddenly his fort on high wouldn't support him anymore. The chair was damaged, repaired, but it wouldn't spin so well as it had done before. Finn knew he had to be careful now. This was still his father's chair, and he'd been careless. This was going to change.

Sitting on that chair now, the surroundings didn't look the way they had, once upon a time, but he could still vaguely remember how it had felt. Today things had changed… He knew what had happened to his father, more than 'he's gone.' He had wished for so long for just one memory that was his, his alone. All he had were other people's memories of Christopher Hudson. And as much as he liked to think that told him what he needed to know to create him in his mind, the pieces just fluttered together in the shape of a person… but they weren't the man. Some days he'd just have to sit in that chair, try to remember what it felt like to be made content just by holding on and turning, turning, turning…

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!