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 47th cycle. Now cycle 48!

Cycle 48/Day 1000 special: So, yes, in this cycle, a milestone I had to do something special for.
In this cycle I'm passing my 1000th consecutive day of gleekathon! So for this, the cycle will feature:
* 21-day/chapter story for the Sunshine Girls series (This Little Light of Mine)
* 14-day/chapter story special for day 1000 (Let Me Tell You A Story)
* One-shot installments from 12 series + 2 non-series
* And for this cycle and this cycle alone (I swear), 7 'triple shift' days, with 3 chapters/stories going up in the day!

This is a triple shift day. There will be two more uploads today: This Little Light of Mine, chapter 3 and Let Me Tell You A Story, chapter 3.

"Remember That Night When"
Artie/Lucy (OC)
Artie/Lucy series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

(A/N: Please read the info above the line! Thanks!)

A few days had passed now since the party at Santana's house. He couldn't exactly say if it had been good or bad. When he'd woken up the next morning he just couldn't remember any part of it after a certain point. He guessed he'd had that coming, with how much they'd all been drinking, but with the potential that he would have made a fool of himself, it would have been good to know.

And then there had been the pictures.

Their phones had been able to capture the occasional snapshot, and eventually they had begun to circulate amongst them. Artie had started receiving them, too.

A lot of them were just silly, a couple bordering on racy, but nothing he hadn't seen before. But there were a couple where he was in the picture, and so was Lucy. He did not remember this, but even then just looking it was easy to see what was happening in those pictures.

She was sitting in his lap in one of them, and she looked at him with eyes that just had no interest in looking at or seeing anyone else; he was familiar with that look from her.

And in other pictures, which he had to guess came later in the evening, she was still in his lap, only her hair was dishevelled, clothes a little disrupted, and he was in the same condition, they…

He gasped to himself, thinking… No, they couldn't have, right? But they were drunk, maybe… oh, no… He was panicking now. What if they had? What if they'd gotten drunk and ended up… ended up sleeping together?

He almost dropped his phone as that thought hit him full force. He had no memory of anything, he couldn't confirm or deny a thing, all he had to go on were those pictures.

What about Lucy? From what she had told him he had to guess she didn't remember a thing either… Now there was this, and… This could be bad, real bad… Could he get arrested?

He texted her in such a haste that he had to type and correct about ten times. He needed to talk to her, be honest, hope that nothing would be wrong… She had to know, right? There'd be…

"Artie?" He turned when he heard her. "Are you okay?" she asked, and she still had her phone in her hand.

"We need to talk," he told her, rolling off to the empty choir room.

"S-sure… okay," she followed. "What's wrong?" Once alone in the room he handed her his phone, showing the first of the pictures. She blinked. "Oh."

"There's… there's more," he pointed, and she swiped through the next pictures. Her face blanched just a hint. "I don't know… I mean I don't remember if you and I, we…" he struggled, and she looked at him.

"We didn't," she shook her head. "We kissed, once, but that's it," she promised.

"Are you sure?" he asked, slightly relieved.

"Positive, I mean I…" Now he got it.

"So you remember?" he asked, and after a moment, she nodded. "All of it?"

"Yeah, I mean I didn't at first, but then it came back to me," she explained.

"You told me you didn't."

"I know, I'm sorry. I just thought if you found out you might… feel bad."

"About a kiss? Lucy, I saw those pictures and I thought I might have… forced myself on you or something," he told her, and she blinked.

"Artie, I'm so sorry."

"You could have just told me. Even if I felt bad at least I'd know I didn't do anything that might have hurt you." There was still so much worry that this would have been the case, all right there on his face, and she felt rotten.

"I'm… I'm sorry," she shook her head; what else could she tell him but that?

"Tell me what happened?" he begged, so she told him.

"We drank, we danced… drank some more. We ended up in the laundry room, that's where we made out. We were going to go further, but we both stopped ourselves. Then we sat there for a while before we got out of there and went back to dance," she told him. He nodded along to everything she said.

"Okay…"

"Artie, I don't know what to say…"

"It's alright," he promised.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yes, I'm sure."

They had parted ways, leaving him to just think about… everything.

He would carry on being patient through this break-up. He had made mistakes before, lost Tina, lost… Okay, in Brittany's case it was slightly different, considering who she was dating now, but even then… He had been, was and would continue to be patient, but it was getting harder not to wonder if they just wouldn't ever reunite. Every new week that begun he had to tell himself they were still apart and hope for a change that week.

She still cared for him, he had to know that. He had looked at those other pictures; that wasn't nothing, that was – drunken – love. People could go a lifetime on missed opportunities though. What if that was all they'd ever be? A missed opportunity… They'd had their time, then he'd messed it up, and now they were doomed to suffer for it for the rest of their lives.

He had to talk to her again, he had to say… he didn't know what, but he had to say something.

He went searching for her again, and he eventually saw her just as she entered the girls' bathroom. He waited outside for her, and when minutes had passed and she still wasn't out, he wondered what was happening. He went to the door, catching a glimpse inside as a girl came out, and he saw her… standing at the sink… crying. He looked around, deciding quickly. He entered the bathroom.

"Lucy?" She startled, reaching to wipe at her eyes.

"They're going to kick your chair out of here if they catch you," she tried to sound natural.

"Lucy…" he spoke again, and she crumbled again.

"I can't…" she breathed.

"Can't what?" he reached for her hand, and… she just squeezed it, held it with something like longing, yearning.

"I miss you, I don't want to have to stop myself kissing you, I just…"

"Hey," he pulled for her to look at him, and she did, crouching to look at him. "There's no pressure, you just do what you…"

"Stop," she shook her head, and when he did, she leaned in, slowly kissing him. He didn't do anything to lead her, let her do it, and what he understood now was maybe his fears had been delusions, that this moment he had needed to come was unfolding before his eyes… on his lips.

She looked back into his eyes, silently asking if they could be okay, if they could be them. He reached out, touching her cheek before pulling her back to him, and he just saw the hint of a relieved smile disappear on to her face and then it was in her kiss, in his kiss… They could care less if they were in people's way.

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!