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 63rd cycle. Now cycle 64!

"Weaving & Twining"
(13yo) Nora & Grace
Sunshine Girls 2 series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

It had been two years since the Mackennas had left Scotland and moved into the house across the street from Nora and – one half of – her family, and two years since Grace and her had become friends, soon to be best friends, along with Emily. Now the girls were thirteen years old, and while their lives were changing, entering those first teenage years, that friendship only changed in that it grew stronger. That summer when they had been thirteen would remain one of their most memorable. In all the time where any two of them were in Lima at the same time, there was hardly a night where one or two of them didn't sleep over at one of the others' houses. Slumber Summer, they'd call it.

Emily was out of town for two of those weeks, visiting her parents. She had been dreading it for as long as she'd known it was coming, and she would confide in her two best friends how she almost didn't want to go. But she hadn't had a choice. So she'd gone, leaving Nora and Grace on their own for two full weeks. Still, their Slumber Summer carried on.

Nora had been sleeping at the Mackennas for the past three days, and on the fourth morning, Nora, Grace, and Grace's younger brother Aidan left the house together, bound for the pool. Aidan was ten years old, and as close as he was to his big sister, he had grown into more and more of the typical 'bratty little brother.' If they didn't keep an eye on him, he would run off and they would lose him. It had happened before.

At the pool, Aidan had found a couple of his friends from school, so the girls had ended up letting him go to play with them. This left the two of them to go and swim on their own. They dove in, chased around. Nora would splash the water at Grace, just to hear the surprised sound she'd make. After a while, Nora looked up to the end of the pool.

"You want to take a turn on the diving board?"

"No, I couldn't," Grace blinked, staring at the thing. "It's too high."

"It's not that bad, I know you can do it," Nora smiled, but Grace wouldn't budge. "Fine, then you can watch me do it. Maybe it'll change your mind." Nora swam out of the pool to climb up to the board while there was no one going through. She could hear Grace cheering her on, and she smiled, planning to perform the best possible dive she could.

She had just inched up to the end of the board when she saw him. He could be playing a game. But his friends were nowhere to be seen, and he was barely enough of a swimmer to get by, he wouldn't float like that. The next moment, she was diving in, no show, just getting in the water as fast as she could so she could swim to Aidan and make sure he wasn't in trouble the way he looked.

At some point, Grace must have seen her going and wondered what she was up to. And then she must have seen her brother, face down. Nora heard her squeak of a scream just as she reached Aidan and flipped him over.

"Aidan?" she called, but he wasn't responding.

The lifeguard, who hadn't seen anything until Grace's shriek, had come to pull Aidan from the water. The girls watched him work to revive the boy, Nora holding the frightened Grace's hand. When her little brother finally coughed and opened his eyes, the redheaded girl nearly collapsed in her friend's arms with relief. Aidan would be alright, they had gotten to him on time.

Mrs. Mackenna had come to pick them all up, and Nora had been dropped off back home on the way. Regardless of how things had ended, Grace had been grounded, for letting her brother off on his own, and Nora had gotten the same from her own mother. So, for that weekend, Slumber Summer was suspended.

Two nights after the pool incident, Nora had been getting ready for bed when her stepfather appeared at her door. "Someone here to see you," he nodded back over his shoulder just as Grace walked in.

"Am I going to get in trouble?" Nora asked innocently.

"You? Always," Finn gave her a smile before leaving the girls. Nora went to shut the door before turning to Grace.

"How's Aidan?"

"Oh, he's great. Mom gives him anything he wants, he's milking it."

"Figures," Nora chuckled.

"I have something for you," Grace sat on the edge of the bed. The wrapping paper crinkled on its way out of her pocket. It was flat and square, and Nora had no idea what it was. "To say thanks."

"You didn't have to get me…"

"I didn't," Grace held it out to her, so Nora sat with her, smiling on reflex as she unwrapped the present. Inside more paper, Nora would uncover a bracelet woven with multicolored strings, one single blue green bead trapped among the strings. "I had time to kill," Grace smirked.

"It's beautiful," Nora had never known she could do anything like this.

"Wait, one more thing," she reached in her pocket again and revealed a second, identical bracelet. "One for you, one for me. You saved my brother."

"The lifeguard saved him," Nora insisted.

"The lifeguard wouldn't have seen him at all if you hadn't seen him first," Grace insisted right back. "I wanted to do this, then we'll remember, and you'll know… how happy I am that you're my friend."

"Give me your arm," Nora beamed, taking the second bracelet and tying it to the girl's wrist. Grace would take the first one and do the same for her. They looked at the pair of them side by side, and Nora laughed, hugging her friend. "Thank you."

"Thank you," Grace returned.

"Now, come on, we have to convince your parents and mine to let you sleep here tonight."

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!