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.

"Revealing & Accepting"
Nora 15 (AU!Beth), Emily, Grace - Finn/Quinn, Puck/Rachel, Hailey & Hannah 4
Sunshine Girls 2 Series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

1. The Lead

A/N: This story and all stories for two weeks (days 1240-1253) are dedicated to
a very dear and awesome friend on the occasion of her birthday ;) Here's to you, Anne!

As far as she was concerned, this show could not have come at a better time. Grace had only just transferred to McKinley, after her father had gone back to Scotland for work. Not only would this give her a chance to get better known, but it would also give her something fun to focus on, instead of missing her father and her older brother Donny.

They doubted it was the show itself that would bring participants in, so much as the prizes they could win. The school had really outdone itself, which was saying a lot in their case. Some would have called it a talent show – it certainly worked like one – but its true purpose was to raise funds for some worthy causes. Many of them wouldn't even be aware of this, which made the pool of student candidates to run the show that much smaller. They wanted someone who would be mindful of what they were really doing. There were two choices of note.

Nora's competition came in the shape of Bailey Strong. They didn't interact so much, on any given day, even though they were in the same year. But she still knew plenty of her, and not just for the fact that she was in a wheelchair. Emily would say that Bailey made it her mission in life to make that the least interesting thing about her, which they would have respected a lot more if her methods weren't to basically be obnoxious and mean.

When it had been announced that Nora had been granted the position, she had been beyond ecstatic. Bailey looked more like she had ingested a hot pepper and a sour lime at the same time and they were fighting it out on her face. She would act gracious, as they were standing right there in front of faculty, but then Nora could already see about a hundred comebacks queuing up in her brain, waiting to be shot out at her. Bailey couldn't spoil this for her, but just in case she had hurried to leave and rejoin Emily and Grace so they could head on home.

"Did you get it?" Emily asked, just as Nora snatched up her arm and waved for Grace to come along as well. "Ow, that's my arm!" she cried out.

"Just hurry up before we get steamrolled," Nora told her.

"What did you do?" Grace asked.

"Nothing!" she defended herself with a laugh.

"So you did get it," Emily guessed.

"Yes, now let's get out of here."

Nora arrived home to an empty house. It would be a little while longer before her mother arrived, having picked up Hailey on the way from work, and then her stepfather would be arriving around the same time. She had taken the time, while she had it, to draft up a better list than she already had, in anticipation of what she would need to do for the show.

She heard what she thought to be a car and stretched her neck to look out the window. She smirked and ran from her room, getting down the stairs as fast as she could and coming about face to face with her stepfather. "Hey, Dad, guess what!" she told him. Her smirk had gone and found him, and there was no way he wouldn't know the answer.

"You're running the fundraiser?" Finn asked, and the fifteen-year-old nodded, holding up both of her hands. He gave the double high five, following right through into picking her up into a hug.

"That's great, Nora, you're going to be the best show runner they could get," he declared, and it made her laugh. "That's my story," he insisted.

"It was just me and another girl in the end, she was not happy when I got it, not at all," she carried on as he went about putting his things away, following him around. "She had one of these faces, you know, like…" she imitated Bailey's expression, and he looked startled. "Exactly."

Before long, they could hear the door downstairs, and… "Hello?" Quinn's voice called out.

"Up here," Finn called.

"I got it," Nora told him, moving to return down the stairs one more time. As soon as her little sister had spotted her, she came up, waving a piece of paper.

"Look, it's for you," Hailey announced. Nora crouched down so she could see.

"Wow," she smirked. "Thank you so much, I love it," she beamed.

"That's you, and me, and Mommy, and Daddy, Hannah, and Auntie and Uckle," she pointed. From the time she had started talking, that was how she had called her uncle Puck; he was more than happy to have her call him as she liked.

"It's beautiful, should we put it in my room, or on the fridge, on in the basement…" Nora listed off options. Hailey pointed up. "My room?" She nodded. "Okay, we will do that, but first, gotta talk to mom, come on." In the kitchen, Quinn had already started preparing dinner.

"How did it go today?" she asked; she was just as curious to know. When Nora grinned, she laughed and came up to hug her. "You're going to be great."

"That's what Dad said."

"Well you will be," Quinn nodded.

"I hope so, or else Bailey will never let me hear the end of it," Nora sighed. "I mean I would have been bummed out, too, if I hadn't gotten the post, but she looked like it was a personal attack on her, like it belonged to her, and I stole it away."

"You earned it," Quinn promised. "So don't worry about this other girl. You show her why they picked you." Nora smiled; she could do that.

"Nora…" Hailey tugged at her shirt.

"Oh, right, your picture," she remembered. "Alright, let's go," she pointed up to the stairs, and Hailey was gone in a flash.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)