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 59th cycle. Now cycle 60!

This is a shift day. There are two updates today.

"My Daughter the Nurse"
Sue & Brittany 12
Sylvesters series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

Brittany remembered how her mother would tell her it would take a beast three times her size to take her down. She was twelve years old, so she believed it. Then one morning, the beast came knocking.

When she'd woken up, dragging her slippered feet into the kitchen, there was no one there. She frowned, confused. "Mom?" she called. Her mother was always there when she woke up, looking like she'd been up for hours. She'd have breakfast on the table, and Brittany would eat before going to get dressed for school. "Mom?"

She'd gone up to her bedroom door, knocking twice before opening it. Her mother was lying in bed, sleeping. Brittany came closer, to see her face before giving her shoulder a careful shake.

"Mom? It's morning." Sue's eyes opened, just barely.

"What?" she asked, unleashing a series of deep coughs. Brittany jumped back.

"Are you okay?"

"Do I look okay?" Sue asked.

"You look… puffy?" Brittany tried. "Are you sick?"

"It would look that way. You should call your grandfather, he can come and take you to school, alright? Did you have breakfast yet?" Brittany shook her head. "Can you take care of it?"

"I'll think of something," she nodded.

"No ice cream," Sue warned her. "And don't touch the oven or the stove… or the toaster… or the microwave… or the coffee machine. Did I leave anything out?"

"Mixer?"

"Right. Don't touch that one either."

"Okay," Brittany left the room, then returned with a box of tissues, which she placed within her mother's reach, on her nightstand.

"Thank you," she heard her mother call out.

In the kitchen, Brittany took up the phone while she looked in the refrigerator. She dialled and soon heard Joseph Pierce's voice. "Hi, Gramp!" she shut the door, the jar of jam under her arm. She put it on the counter, going to retrieve the peanut butter.

"This is a surprise," Joseph sounded happy to hear her.

"Mom said to call you," she looked at the drawer with the utensils. Her mother never liked her using knives. So she shrugged and grabbed two spoons.

"How come?"

"She's sick," Brittany revealed, with a mouthful of peanut butter. "She won't get up."

"So she wants me to drive you to school?" Brittany pondered, now with a spoon of jam.

"No. You have to call at school and say I can't go," she told him. "I'm sick, too." She coughed, feebly so. "You can't come, you'll get it. Really bad." She 'coughed' again. "But maybe you could bring soup, leave it outside the door?"

"Well, if you're sick, then you'll need cough medicine. You know the one…"

"No!" she blurted out. That thing tasted the way she thought evil might taste like.

"So you're not sick then."

"I… I don't know?" she frowned.

"Brittany…" he prodded and she sighed.

"I want to take care of my mom," she insisted. "Please? I can miss a day."

"If your mother won't even get out of bed, this is going to be more than a day."

"I'll do all my homework. I'll have more time, I might do better," she pointed out.

"What about your mother and her secret about you? If both of you are absent, won't that be strange?" He had her there, although she wasn't entirely sure he wasn't doing it on purpose, so she would go to school.

"What about her?"

"I'll stay with her. She'll fight me on it, but she's in bed, so that should be an even fight… Are you laughing?" he asked, and it took her a moment to stifle her laughter before answering.

"No…"

"I'll be there in twenty minutes at the most," he told her, and they hung up. One more scoop of each jar later, she had grabbed an apple and an orange from the bowl on the counter and skipped off back to her mother's room. Sitting on the free side, she held out the orange to her.

"What's this for?" Sue glared at the fruit.

"You're supposed to eat them when you're sick, right?" she explained, cleaning off the apple on her pyjamas before biting into it.

"Right," Sue breathed out, making a show of putting it on the nightstand along with the tissues. "Did you call your grandfather?"

"I did. He's coming. He wouldn't let me stay with you," she explained.

"You need to go to school, Brittany," Sue told her, pushing herself to sit up.

"I know, it's just…"

"It's just… what?" Sue prodded, and her daughter's eyes turned back up.

"I just wanted to take care of you, that's all. You would do it, if I was sick, so now you're sick…"

"And you will be, too, if you stay too long, so you're better off being at school anyway."

"Okay, but I would have stayed if I could," she pointed with her half-eaten apple in hand.

"Noted," Sue promised. "Is that peanut butter I smell?" she asked then, and Brittany looked to her apple. "And strawberries… Sandwich?"

"Sort of," she took another bite of apple. "Can I bring something else?"

"I'll be fine for now, just go and get dressed before your grandfather gets here."

"Okay," Brittany dashed off.

By the time she'd finished getting ready, Joseph had arrived. Soon she'd be set to head to school, but she wouldn't go before stopping in to see her mother again.

"Sleep," she commanded.

"I will," Sue promised, at the mercy of the twelve-year-old.

"And don't fight him," she indicated her grandfather.

"I'll try not to," Sue went on, throwing a glance at the man. Sometimes she took issue with him only because she could see Joe in his face. Brittany had that same face, that Pierce face, the only time it didn't upset her to see it.

"When I get home I'll help you," she promised.

"I know you will," Sue tapped her hand and Brittany smiled, coming to put a kiss on her forehead, the same way Sue did when the girl was sick herself, pressing the back of her hand above her brow, flipping it over, then holding the side of her face before putting her lips right there above her nose.

"You'll be better in no time," Brittany vowed, and Sue knew she would be.

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!