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 71st cycle. Now cycle 72!

"Someday and Everyday"
(Older) Mike/Tina, 16yo Lily Chang (OC)
Chang Squared series (FINAL INSTALLMENT)
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

This was not the first date Lily Chang had been on in her sixteen years of living, but this one was going to be special, and she could feel it. Maybe it was just that she had 'crazy weird dizzy heart feelings' about the boy in question, as she had put it, but when he'd come up to her at the end of history class at the start of the week and asked her out, she'd nearly run straight into the wall instead of through the doorway. If it hadn't been for her history teacher being right there and redirecting her, she would have been sporting a bruise or a broken nose or something else on this date.

But her face had been spared, and as she had said yes, she now found herself rushing home on Friday afternoon to get ready before he'd pick her up. Her parents had known this day was coming, not that she had a shot at keeping it from them in any way. She'd been living on a cloud all week.

"What's this boy's name again?" Mike had asked, sitting in the living room with his computer and some recordings. Tina was standing at the bottom of the stairs like she was expecting to be called up at any moment.

"Nolan," she responded.

"And what do we know about him?"

"If Lily's anything to judge by, I'll assume he's cute."

"That doesn't tell us all that much," he frowned.

"He's coming to pick her up, I'm choosing to see that as a good sign. Provided she doesn't rush him out of here so we don't embarrass her…"

"We don't do that," Mike looked up and she smiled.

"She might not think that."

"Come here," he nodded so she'd come sit with him. When she did, he put his arm around her. In the end, it was still just the three of them, and they were happy as they were, with Lily to focus on. "So if this boy is a keeper…"

"Just because we found each other so young doesn't mean she will, too," Tina nodded.

"True, but if he does stick around…" Their daughter had yet to find a boy that became a boyfriend in any significant way; they'd never waded into that territory, and if it was possible, they were more freaked out about it than Lily ever could be herself.

"We do what we can," Tina patted her husband's arm.

"Mom!" Lily's voice reached them from upstairs.

"Tag, I'm in," Tina sprang up and jogged up the stairs. The boy would be here before long, if they expected to make it to dinner. For now, she found Lily in approximately the state she expected to find her in. The more excited she was about something, the more impossible it became for her to decide how she wanted to look during it. If they were to measure by the size of the pile of clothes and the tangling of her very long raven hair, she might never have been so excited about anything as she was about this night. "You will pick this up later, won't you?" Tina had blinked. "Is there even anything left in your closet?" Lily's face appeared with a look on it that read something like 'this is no time for jokes.' "Okay, pick a color," she demanded. Lily stared at her.

"I… I was wearing purple when he asked me out?"

"Then purple it'll be. What about that dress that we…" Lily made a face. "The top with the…" she mimed, and she got another face for it. "Can I say something? You might not think you'll look good, but I swear to you, he will not pay that much attention to what you're wearing that you should agonize about it for hours. I say go with the dress." Lily blinked, pointing at the dress, which was sticking out of the pile on the ground. "Yes, that one."

Lily put on the dress, and once she had it on, she turned to her mirror, and it was as though her hands knew what to do with her hair again. Finally, when she looked at herself, she was pleased, and she smiled. It was amazing for Tina to see that smile; if she didn't know any better, that could have been exactly what her face looked like, when she'd get ready to go out with Mike, when she was barely Lily's age. Maybe Nolan would be the one, and maybe he wouldn't be. But for now, in Lily's head and probably in her heart, too, he was the one, and that was all that mattered.

She'd just finished getting ready when the doorbell rang. Lily turned to her mother in a bit of panic. 'Breathe,' Tina mouthed before signalling for her to follow downstairs. Mike had already let Nolan in, and they were talking. It turned out, which Lily had not known, that Nolan's uncle was none other than Matt Rutherford, who had gone to school with both of her parents. Nolan's mother, Matt's older sister had moved to Los Angeles to go to school, and she had stayed there, where she'd met Nolan's father. If this revelation didn't put Nolan in her parents' good favors fast enough, she didn't know what would.

"Did you see the look on his face when he saw her coming?" Tina smirked.

"I need to call Matt, I haven't talked to him in a while. Wait until he hears about this."

As Lily and Nolan had finally gone off to have their date, Mike and Tina were left to themselves, and all this talk of home, and their own teenage years, had brought them back to that time, the two of them falling in love, slowly becoming the people they had turned into. Lily was the product of every part of it, and they couldn't wait to see what she would become next.

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!