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 78th cycle. Now cycle 79!

"Sit & Hold"
Nora (AU!Beth), Emily, Grace
Sunshine Girls 2 series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

There was never one time where they were all of them in the same room, the same class, in none of their days at school… except when they walked into the choir room, and then the potential for an awkward moment here and there sky rocketed. And that was before the day Emily learned what had really happened in her basement between Nora and Grace.

It had not been so long since the incident, but as at no time the three girls had managed to discuss it together, or with only the interested parties involved, there had been what they could only call a problem in communication. Grace herself had never spoken of it with neither Nora nor Emily, but she knew Nora had to have said something to Emily. She just didn't know what she had and hadn't said.

Nora had only discussed it with Emily once, and while she had confirmed she now knew Grace reciprocated her feelings, she hadn't elaborated further than that.

They had taken to the habit of meeting up at Grace's locker from whatever class they'd been in before, so they could head into the choir room together. Grace was already rummaging through the locker when Emily had arrived.

"I don't want to go in there," she grumbled, pressing her forehead to the closed door of the locker two doors over. Grace smirked, patting her back.

"What's wrong?" she asked, just as Emily held out a small stack of sheets stapled at the top, with a large red letter at the other corner. "Woah…"

"That woman has it in for me. I worked really hard on this."

"I know you did," Grace promised. Emily took another long breath before making herself turn around.

"Give me some good news at least? Right now if I go in that room, I'm going to be that girl that has a meltdown because she's singing something sad."

"Uh…" Grace tried to think of something to tell her. "I… I found five dollars in my pants' pocket when I put them on this morning?" she gave what little she could come up with.

"Oh, come on, you can do better than that," Emily begged. "What about you and Nora, are you getting any closer to stopping kidding yourselves already? Seriously, it's been weeks since she broke up with Francesca, what are you waiting for?"

"We said we'd let it happen…"

"Nothing will if neither of you makes a move," Emily pointed out. "You can't stand there and tell me you haven't been thinking about it. Going out on a date…"

"Emily…"

"Holding hands…" she only carried on.

"Not like we never do that," Grace pointed out.

"Kissing…" Emily spoke semi-dramatically, as though this would in any way make it less awkward to picture her two best friends making out.

"Or that…" Grace ticked this to her previous statement. When she heard an intake of breath, she turned and found Emily staring at her with a mounting smile.

"Say that again? You kissed? Why didn't you tell me? I'm not asking for all the details, but this is kind of a big deal!" she pointed out. Grace blinked. "When did you…"

"In the basement, when you locked us in," Grace answered, as though this was common knowledge.

"What?" Emily's outburst drew the eyes of every single person in the hall with them at that moment, including Nora, who had been on her way to join them.

"What's going on with you, Holt?" she asked, chuckling. Grace turned to her, a nervous look in her eyes.

"You two kissed that day?" Emily's voice threatened to echo out as she tried to keep it down. Nora turned to Grace, who gave an apologetic face. "This explains so much…" Emily spoke to herself before looking back at the two of them. "Wait, who kissed who?"

"We are not doing that," Nora pointed her finger at her. "We're going to be late, come on, and don't say anything," she instructed Emily.

"Why not?" she frowned. At that same time, Francesca walked by them, also on her way to the choir room. "Oh…" Emily blinked. "Oh no…" She was nervous, and they knew why. This kind of information in her possession was bound to affect her until she'd had time to process it. As nothing short of being at the head of the Nora/Grace 'fan club,' this was a development of monumental proportions.

"Look, Kelly's over there, go sit with him," Nora nudged Emily toward her boyfriend, who so happened to be on the opposite end of where Francesca was sitting.

"Yeah, but…" Emily pleaded, then figured maybe they had a point. "Okay," she sighed.

Nora and Grace did as they'd been doing ever since the day when they'd stayed back to talk. Nora sat in the first row, not quite in the middle, while Grace sat one row up and over her shoulder. The point wasn't so much to fool anyone or pretend like nothing was going on, but it felt like as close to a compromise as they could get.

"Hey…" Nora turned, recognizing Francesca's voice. "She alright?" she nodded to the other end, where Emily sat as though she was trying to keep from letting her face mold around any kind of emotion.

Nora and Francesca might not yet have been able to say they were back on friendship terms again, but with the weeks they had slowly started interacting more naturally again, something which both girls were relieved about.

"Yeah, she…" Nora started to answer, unsure where she was headed.

"Bad grade," Grace tipped her head forward and whispered.

"Bad grade," Nora repeated, keeping her voice down.

"Oh…" Francesca frowned, sitting back. Nora stared up to Grace behind her, biting back a smirk.

Thankfully, they made it through to the end of the period without too much damage. Emily still had trouble keeping it together, while both Nora and Grace kept an eye on her, just in case. It was tense enough that, when it was over, Grace thought she heard Nora let out a sigh of relief.

"Hey, if you guys want to come over for dinner tonight…" Nora asked Grace as they walked out.

"Can't tonight," Grace shook her head. "I promised Ethan we'd hang out."

"Hang out…" Nora hesitated. She knew Grace had spent time with him a few times since their failed date, and it wasn't so much that she was jealous, but sometimes she did wonder. Grace smiled and nodded.

"See you tomorrow, alright?"

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!