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 3 - Marley Rose

This is a double shift day. There will be one more upload today: Technicolor Wishes & Hi-Def Dreams, chapter 5.

"It Would Be Best"
Marley

Somehow she had never heard of anything about Glee Club before she had come to McKinley. None of her schools before had one, and when she'd heard the words, she had no idea what went on in such a club. Did people just share stories of how they were really happy? Then she'd heard the words 'show choir' and her ear had properly twitched.

Marley had always loved to sing. She was one of those kids who would put on shows for relatives when they came, though there was never an audience member she sought to make happier than she did her mother. Little Marley would stand up and announce she had a song, and always she would turn a smile to her mother as she said this. From there she had progressed to school talent shows, and as shy as she could be about other things, being up on that stage had always brought a special kind of energy she couldn't get enough of. By the time she had reached McKinley she already knew that was what she wanted to do when she grew up, to make music, perform it, hear herself on the radio…

So if anything, finding out about Glee Club and what happened in there had been like a sign… Like maybe this school would be different, and it would be the place where she'd be really happy. Even if she knew what the words referred to now, she still associated Glee Club with happiness.

To see what she was up against, she had gone into the library and searched for videos on the internet. She had found a recording of their performance at Nationals the year before, and as she did she felt her nerves coil themselves around her. They were good… really good. She had sung before people already, yes, but it was by herself, and… and now she worried maybe she wouldn't be good enough. She still wanted it, wanted it so bad, but she knew that didn't mean she would get in. Her mother would say try anyway, and Marley held on to that. If she tried they might say no, but if she didn't try they could have said yes and she would never know.

After her trip to the library, walking through the halls she began to see faces she thought she recognized from that video. Yes, there was the boy in the wheelchair, and the one with the dreadlocks, the blonde girl, the Asian girl… She tried not to stare, but at the same time she couldn't help but wonder.

Before she even really thought about what she could do in her audition, she just thought of what she'd been through before, and what her situation was here as well. When they'd come and her mother had gotten the lunch lady job, she had told her to pretend like she didn't know her when she saw her out in the cafeteria, that she'd pick her up a few blocks away from the school… Marley didn't see the point in it, but she knew her mother meant well, that she worried for, so she went along with it.

It was true, in the past she'd had little to no friends, for one reason or another… because they didn't have a lot of money, or because her mother worked as a lunch lady, or because she was the size she was. She didn't understand how people could be so mean when they didn't even know her mother.

To her, that woman was everything. She had championed for Marley her whole life, taught her so many things about being good and kind to others, and being true to herself… Only here she had decided to change her tune altogether and hide. She loved her enough to sacrifice something for her sake. If she was honest though, Marley didn't want to hide. There were things that did worry her, whether she liked it or not, like being looked down on for where her clothes came from, but there was no love lost or won there. Her mother mattered to her more than clothes, and having to hide her made her sadder.

Then she had seen them all in the cafeteria, sat together. From what she'd seen in her previous schools, how they were all sat together, it shouldn't have looked like it worked. Cheerleader here, jock there, those who would have been pegged unpopular, or made fun of for one reason or another… But they were all together, and they looked like they were friends… Maybe they really were different, and she could belong with them. That thought alone made her both terrified and hopeful. The hope was that maybe she would have finally found a place where she could belong… The terror was that they wouldn't think her good enough, wouldn't accept her.

She had to get past this, take a first step. She could start with something as simple as introducing herself to them, tell them how she was going to audition. They might remember her when she got up on that stage and think of her as being really motivated, ready to take on whatever challenges they threw at her. Hands grasped to her tray, she had taken a few more steps, and she slowed to a stop before their table. She told them who she was, about her intent to audition. It was odd to actually and finally talk to them and have them talk back. They were a bit strange, but when she left it was with a smile.

Maybe soon she would be sitting with them at that table, surrounded by new friends who shared her love for music, and who she might be able to be honest with. To her, Glee Club still meant happiness…

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!