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 52nd cycle. Now cycle 53!

THIRD ANNIVERSARY CYCLE: It's late October again, and within this cycle I will be completing my third year of daily gleekathon stories and commencing a fourth! As in previous years, this means special things happening. I've selected my favorite stories from throughout the year, and I'll be treating them to something special. In previous years this included Prequel, Sequel, and POV Swap, and then Additional Scenes and Alternate Endings. This year I'm adding two new treatments: Genre Swap (I think that's pretty straightforward) and Element Change (I change one thing in the story, see how it affects the rest). Note that in both these cases and some of the others, there may excerpts directly transferred from the story it references. Also, since this year saw the addition of 'shift days', and since I suck at picking, I have selected 42 stories, to be treated two per day! So here we go!

This story is an Element Change to The Old-Fashioned Way, a Familiar Strangers series story, originally posted on June 6 2012.

This is a double shift day. There will be one more upload today: Fear As Sentence.

"Must Love Dogs"
Finn/Elsie (OCish)
Familiar Strangers series extra
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

Ever since he'd brought him home, Finn doubted one day had gone by without waking up to Elmer, asleep at the foot of the bed. The dog would turn those big soft eyes up like he was making sure this was alright, and Finn would just chuckle and scratch at his ears. When Elsie had asked him about taking in the dog, either temporarily or permanently, he had no idea what he would choose to do, but as soon as he'd seen his face, scratched at his fur, he was a goner…

He'd gotten the call to go pick him up, of all days, on Saturday morning, the day he was set for his first date with Elsie. He couldn't put it off, any of it. Elmer's previous owner had to head out of state earlier than planned, and somehow rescheduling a first date felt like bad luck. But leaving the dog on his own in an unfamiliar setting didn't sound like a good idea either.

He had set him up with food and water while he was getting ready. He had showered, shaved, dressed… and every time he turned around, there was Elmer, staring at him, trotting after him… By the time he'd finished getting ready, he knew he had a problem.

He'd called Elsie, trying to see what he should do. She'd known the dog before, maybe she could tell him what to do. She told him she'd come over. He would have liked to go and pick her up, but this was how it had to be.

He sat there with the dog, trying to see if he was okay, if he could leave him… He just kept giving him those eyes…

"Come on, buddy… It's just a little while. I wouldn't go, but…" There was a knock at his door and he looked up, sighing. "It's open," he called.

The door opened and when he looked up, he froze. The first time he'd seen her out of her work uniform was one thing. But on that night, his eyes had travelled up those legs, to the dress, white with great colorful flowers that suited her just right, the hair pulled back at the sides and over her shoulder… For a moment, he properly couldn't breathe.

"Hi…" he found his voice.

"Dog problems?" she smirked.

"We… bonded," Finn defended, while Elmer sat there, pawing at his knee, trying to get the ball in his hand.

"I can tell," she laughed, moving up and crouching. "Hey, Elmer," she gave him a scratch when he noticed her and his tail got wagging. "You like it here, don't you?" The dog rose to get up to her, still too happy to bear. "He's not shy, you know," she laughed.

"Don't think he wants me to leave…" Elsie got up close with the dog, looking into his big sad eyes.

"Yeah…" she sighed, kissing the top of Elmer's head. "I was afraid this might happen," she admitted.

"So what do we do?" he asked, and Elsie looked back to him.

"Well, I got all set for a date, that's what we're going to do," she told him, going from her crouch to sit on the ground, picking off her shoes and beckoning Elmer from his lap to hers. "You have menus or something, for takeout?" He sort of had to think about it for a second, but then he nodded, pulling himself back to his feet.

"What… what should we order?" he turned back to her.

"Surprise me, not pizza," she told him.

"Right," he laughed, heading to look for menus. It was an old habit for him to just stick them in a drawer when he got them, which tended to make the process complicated every time. He'd ended up pulling out the entire drawer so he could search through.

"What are you doing?" he heard her voice and looked up to find she could see him.

"Well I…"

"Bring that over here," she shook her head. He came and sat with her again, putting the drawer on the ground. "Do you even throw any of them out?" she asked and he shrugged. She dug to the bottom and the flyers she pulled out were just as she suspected, old and past their date of use. "Why am I not surprised?" she smirked. "One of these days I'm going to come over and sort through those with you."

"Okay?" he blinked.

"Flyer sorting, not exactly date appropriate kind of activity," she explained, putting the old flyers back under the pile before looking at the ones on top.

"Sorry you had to dress up for nothing," he told her as he watched her. She looked up to him with a smile.

"I didn't dress up for nothing, I dressed up for you. And clearly, from the look you gave me when I came in, I did good," she spoke innocently.

"Oh, you did, I…" he started telling her, bowing his head. She smiled, handing him a menu.

"How's Chinese?" she asked, and he took the flyer.

"Perfect," he got up and went to put in the order. While they waited, Elsie got up, suggesting that they 'show Elmer around the house.' It was hardly veiled that what she really wanted was to get shown around him place, but he obliged, humoring her. At the same time, it wasn't a bad idea for Elmer to discover his new home. When the tour was done, Elsie had incited Finn to move the small kitchen table and two chairs to create a bit of a restaurant/dinner mood, lighting and all. Elmer would stay at their feet as the delivery came and they set up to eat. "So what do you want to do after?" he asked.

"What did you have in mind?" she asked.

"I don't know, maybe we can watch a movie or two." She nodded to herself, definitely on board.

"Do you have popcorn, candy, something?"

"I can go get some," he offered, and she smiled. After dinner was done, he had gone on his errand, leaving Elsie with Elmer. He had returned to find her back sitting on the ground, playing with the newly displaced dog. She definitely had a way with him, as much as she did with her own dogs. "Ready?" he asked her, and she looked up.

"Did you leave anything back there?" she asked with a laugh, seeing the size of his loot.

They had settled in for their movies, divvying up the stash. As the movie progressed, the distance between them shrunk further and further until he could feel her arm against him. He took this cue and put his arm around her, which she responded to by leaning to him, getting comfortable. By the end of the movie, he was lazily drawing lines on her arm, which should have warned him, when the credits rolled and he saw she had fallen asleep. He smiled, hesitating as to whether or not he could move.

"Is it over?" her sleepy voice asked after a minute.

"Yeah," he told her. "Probably won't get around to a second one then."

"Sorry, long day at work yesterday, didn't sleep well."

"Want me to drive you home?"

The drive, with the wind coming at them, helped to wake her up, though there was no point pretending the evening would go on. They arrived to her place, and he walked her to the door, where she turned back to him. "Sorry for falling asleep on you back there," she told him.

"Don't worry, it was gr…" He was cut off when she pulled him forward into a slow kiss. It took him by surprise, but then he settled into it, pulling her close. As their lips had separated, they remained as they were, smiling as they looked to one another. "Think you might like doing this again?"

"The kissing, yes, I would definitely like more of the kissing… Oh did you mean the date?" she teased and he laughed. "Yes, definitely, there should be more dating."

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!