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 54th cycle. Now cycle 55!

Favorites cycle - It's that time again, where I gather a list of my fifteen favorite characters, relationships, friendships, etc of the moment! It's constantly evolving, and if I did it over today, as the list was selected weeks ago, it would already be different. But oh well, there'll be later opportunities ;) So then, here we go!
At number 15 - The Newbies (as a collective - Marley, Jake, Kitty, Unique, and Ryder)

"Do You Know Who That Is?"
The Newbies
(Marley, Jake, Kitty, Unique, Ryder)

In the beginning, they didn't really have to think about it. They were entirely aware of the fact that they were new to this world of Glee Club. In essence they were not only auditioning for the director, Mr. Schuester, but for the rest of them, the existing members. Most of them had been doing this for three years now and were entering a fourth year. It wasn't a matter of distance. Once they'd been accepted into the club, they had become one of them, and they were treated as such.

Where the line would come to get drawn was when the past would come along. Memories, old friends, old members… Suddenly they could do nothing but bear witness to the fact that they were the new kids, walking in the footprints of three years' worth of joys and struggles, ups and downs… Three years of histories they had not been part of, which left them off, standing at the side.

For both Marley and Jake, the arrival of Finn Hudson back in Lima, in McKinley, and in the choir room, had been caused a stir of these realizations, but for different reasons.

To Marley it had been the realization of just what it was she had become a part of. It wasn't just that she'd become part of the club, but that she'd become part of their club. She had auditioned to gain one of the many spots vacated by those who had graduated the previous year, like Finn. Looking around the choir room, she had to remind herself that for those who remained, this would be their last year, their last shot at glory. She didn't want to let them down, to let her first steps in this world be stumbles, which would bring them down along with her.

She looked to the trophies, safely hidden behind glass plates, looked at the years, and she could only see the progress. Three years ago, cut off by Regionals. Two years ago, 12th place at Nationals. And last year… a win at Nationals. They would want to go back there, to defend their title. Only their winning team had been splintered in half, one half remaining here while the other was scattered to the winds. What if they didn't make it back there? That'd be their fault, wouldn't it? Her and the others like her, the newbies… They could all do their best, but what if it wasn't enough?

Finn's arrival had meant a whole other thing for Jake. It hadn't taken long for him to know that this guy was his brother's best friend. Puck hadn't known he existed, so Finn sure didn't either, but it hadn't taken long before someone had gone and told him. He knew that for sure, by the way the guy would look at him at first, like he was trying to see Noah in him. Maybe he didn't, maybe he was thinking too much, but then that had been part of his problem the whole time.

He had auditioned at first for Glee Club, because he liked to sing, of course. He didn't want them knowing who he was though. He wore his father's last name, his brother's last name… It wasn't exactly Smith or Jones, so he couldn't pretend like they wouldn't make the connection. After he had mistaken Schuester's interruption for a rejection, he had put the whole idea of going into that choir room into question. What was he even thinking? But then his mind had changed, and he had become part of the club, become "Puck's brother" as well, once his secret got out.

He wanted to be his own person, more than the sibling of a guy he'd never really known. But just like Finn would look at him when he first arrived, he'd gotten some of that from the rest of them, too. It would die down eventually, but with the new arrival, and more to come later on, it was exactly as he'd thought: he was living in his brother's world.

Unique may have been new to New Directions, but not to show choir. After Vocal Adrenaline though, New Directions was a dream. In this place, although there were still plenty of times where it would be him who walked through the halls, shy thing Wade, there were also times where Unique could present herself and be allowed to shine… and she wouldn't trade that. Her guardian angels, Kurt and Mercedes, may have moved on to bigger and better things, but they had opened the way for her to come here, and though they had been competitors just months ago, now it would give Unique no bigger pleasure than to help New Directions fill that trophy case with new prizes.

There were still spaces open in the club, always, but especially now, as Sectionals loomed and the all-important number of twelve remained unfilled. But then the musical could well have brought those missing voices to the front, in the form of Kitty and Ryder. Now all they had to do was to actually decide to join, which remained a sale yet to be completed. Ryder might have been an easier one to lure in. There were plenty of reasons for him to join, about as many as there were for Kitty to do the opposite. She had not made friends of the New Directions, and if she was to be welcomed, well she had a long way to go.

The chance was out there though, for all of them to go from separate clusters, of oldies, and newbies, and 'wouldbies,' into one unit, one choir. It was all left to time to see what they would become, once they were united under one name, as McKinley High's New Directions.

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!