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 43rd cycle. Now cycle 44!

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** UPDATED WITH CYCLE 44 CHEAT SHEET ** Check it out to find out about shift days!

This is a shift day [see above]. There will be another upload this afternoon: Steps 16-36, Time Is On Your Side, chapter 8.

"Lost Days & Cinnamon Hearts"
Sue & Brittany
Sylvesters series (following 'Boom Goes the Dynamite')

It felt like sunshine had invaded their home. After so many months of this quiet stand-off going on between them due to Sue's 'master plan,' now that they were on the mend, the contrast was as powerful as it came. There would still be reminders here and there of how things had been between them in that time, but they were just soft strikes, lost in the bright landscape of their returned happiness. At school, it was business as usual, with Sue being as one would expect following her recent losses, while Brittany was strolling the halls in regular clothes now that she had quit the Cheerios.

At home, it was a Sylvester renaissance. Brittany, or Sue even, didn't remember them being so openly 'familiar' in so many years. She hadn't known her mother to be so warm in all that time, but now seeing her like this it brought back memories of her childhood, how her mother was back then… She could honestly say she had never been this happy, overall happy, for as long as she could remember. There were still parts that could get better, but with how things had changed recently, she had nothing but a positive outlook on the chance that they would get sorted out just like this.

On top of it all, this turn for the better in their home had given her an idea. After spending a long string of holidays on the outs, now Valentine's Day was coming, and she knew that on top of everything else she had planned for that day, she wanted to do something special with her mother. This was a holiday for love, and the way she saw it that didn't just mean the kind that came with kissing and nakedness, but also meant the kind that one had toward the people in their lives they felt love for… Her mother was right at the top of that list. They had so much to catch up on, all this time wasted in the cold…

She had gone shopping the day before for a couple of things, but the rest would have to be done on the day itself. She'd had to get up so early to be up before her mother that it had still been dark out. After dragging her feet, not quite awake yet, she had finally gotten ready and crept out of the house. She got on her bike and headed down to Dee's Diner. She'd drained a cup of coffee as she waited on her order, and then she was on her way back home. When she got there, she saw with a flash of panic that the lights were on. She'd thought she had time to get ready before her mother got up, but now that wasn't the case. She was just getting up the path when the door flew open.

"You left your phone here?" her mother pointed at her.

"Oh… I think so," she blinked. "Didn't think I'd need it." She hesitated. Was her mother upset? "You weren't supposed to be up yet," she explained.

"Up for what?" Sue asked, now seeing the bag in her daughter's hand. Brittany pushed it behind her back.

"Okay, go back in and get dressed, you'll see," she nodded, smiling. After a moment, Sue stepped back and Brittany walked in. "Won't be long, I swear," she told her before running up the stairs to get her purchases from the day before and then coming down to the kitchen. When she was done setting up, she waited outside the kitchen. After a minute, Sue came along, in her daily tracksuit.

"What were you thinking?" she said before anything else. "I heard a noise, I went to check on you, and you weren't in your bed. Do you know how terrifying that can be? I've always left you some freedoms, so long as I could reach you and I knew where you were. Are we going to have to change that?"

"I'm sorry," Brittany spoke, honestly. "But it was just a one time thing. I had a reason, I swear."

"What reason is that?" Sue asked. Brittany's face broke into a smile and she took her mother's hand, pulling her into the kitchen.

The table had been covered with a red table cloth, polka dotted with small white hearts, and at the center was a large glass bowl filled to the brim and even overflowing with cinnamon candy hearts, while the two place settings had orange juice and a Styrofoam container.

"Valentine's Day," Brittany declared her reason. Sue's face relaxed now.

"Pancakes from Dee's?" she guessed and Brittany nodded.

"I wanted us to have a special breakfast together, and last time I tried to make pancakes I made glue," she frowned at the memory, which only made Sue smirk to herself. "Am I in trouble?" Brittany winced.

"I think the cinnamon hearts saved you," Sue joked, tugging her daughter up for a side hug.

"We should eat before the pancakes get cold," Brittany smiled. They sat down, opening their containers.

Anytime they ate those pancakes, Sue couldn't help looking at Brittany and seeing her as the small blonde thing she'd been as a child. They would eat from Dee's so many times… So if there was significance to be pulled from her choice of meal, it wasn't lost on Sue. The same could be said of the cinnamon hearts, a yearly tradition between the two of them. She always remembered how Brittany would say chocolate wasn't special, because even if the shapes were different it was still chocolate, but the cinnamon hearts… Those were Valentine's Day for her, because that was when they came to stores.

They spoke as they ate their way through the pancakes. Brittany had attempted sprinkling the hearts on to her pancakes, with mixed results. They spoke of the lost months, as she called them. All this time they had not really been speaking to each other, kept things to themselves, not necessarily because they wanted it that way but because they were stuck in this impasse… Now they had so many things they could finally say. It wasn't as though they were laying it all out on the table – they still had secrets that should remain secrets – but still they shared what they had kept to themselves for lack of an outlet.

"So you're going to be spending the evening with Wheels, I guess?" Sue asked after a while.

"Artie," Brittany corrected, and Sue waved it off. "Yeah," she confirmed. She hesitated, but then asked. "What about you? What are you going to do?" Sue looked to her.

"Not a whole lot," she admitted. Seeing her daughter's face, she could already see she felt bad for it. "It's alright. I'm not that much of a romantic."

"Sure you are," Brittany wouldn't believe it.

"Still," Sue had felt a twinge of a smile slip by. "Don't you worry about me. You have fun tonight."

"I will," Brittany smiled.

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!