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 54th cycle. Now cycle 55!

Favorites cycle - It's that time again, where I gather a list of my fifteen favorite characters, relationships, friendships, etc of the moment! It's constantly evolving, and if I did it over today, as the list was selected weeks ago, it would already be different. But oh well, there'll be later opportunities ;) So then, here we go!
At number 8 - Sunshine Girls 2 series

"Talking & Missing"
Nora (AU!Beth), Hannah, Micah, Simon, & Noah III (Puckerman kids)
Sunshine Girls 2 series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

She knew she was going to run late in meeting up with Emily and Grace, but there was no way around it. She wasn't going to miss this, and they already knew about it, so it was fine. She sat in front of her computer screen, looked at the time, and then she clicked on her stepmother's name, opening up the video chat and waiting for a response. It always took a few seconds, but every time it was the same thing and she'd wonder if they were actually there or…

She was startled when the image came on, accompanied with the voices of her Puckerman siblings. There they were, all four of them. Hannah sat on the big chair with little Noah in her lap, while the twins, Micah and Simon, were on either side of her, both of them trying to get even a little space for them to sit on the chair with Hannah, which was usually the cause for an argument. Hannah would tell them to get off, that their baby brother could fall, but they wouldn't listen.

"Hey, guys, hello?" she talked, and after a few seconds more she had managed to get their attention. When she did, it was cacophony all over again, as the twins and Hannah greeted her. Poor little Noah, the quiet one, looked positively traumatized. The whole scene made Nora laugh. "So how's it going?" she smiled. "One at a time, please," she instructed.

"Micah, go," Hannah directed.

"Go where?" the four-year-old frowned at his big sister.

"It means talk," Hannah pointed at the screen, exasperated with him.

"Oh... Captain Tom got lost," he reported with a nod.

"No, not Captain Tom," Nora gasped. Captain Tom was an action figure he had gotten at his last birthday; he never left home without it.

"It's okay, we found him," Micah produced the toy for Nora to see, making him 'walk' along the desk.

"Good for the Captain," she smiled. "Simon, what about you?"

"I fell in the park, look!" he lifted up his arms and she saw both his elbows were covered in scabs.

"Ouch," she winced. "Must have hurt, are you okay?"

"Not as much as his knees," Hannah piped in, which prompted Simon to try and show her, something which proved a bit more difficult.

"It's okay, I believe you, stop before you hurt yourself again," Nora begged with him, so he stopped.

"Mom flipped out," Hannah reported.

"Yeah, I bet she did," Nora sympathized with her stepmother. She remembered being about Hannah's age and taking a fall that had left her scraped all down her leg, and her stepmother had lost it. "Try and be careful from now on?" she begged of her little brother, even if the warning was greatly wasted on the boy. "So what about you, Noah?" she smirked, focusing on her littlest brother. Hannah sat up, the better for Noah to see his big sister on the screen. Nora waved at him, and eventually got a smile out of him. "I'll be seeing you soon, I promise, okay?" she told him. Her father, stepmother, and siblings were due to come down from New York in a few weeks, and every time she would chat with them, her brothers and Hannah would ask how many days there were left until they would come to Lima.

"Is it my turn?" Hannah asked, and Nora laughed.

"Yes it is, Banana," she smirked. "So what's up with you?"

"I want to go to the zoo, but Mom is busy with show things, and Dad can't take me," she complained.

"Sorry to hear that, you know I'd love to take you there if I could," Nora smiled at her.

"You should!" Hannah nodded. "Can't you come?"

"To New York? I wish… I have school, remember?"

"Oh…" Hannah frowned.

"But you know I would if I could. I would love nothing more," she assured her sister, restoring her smile.

When she had finished, she'd called Hailey over, to allow her and Hannah to have their own chat, just them, free of pesky little brothers on Hannah's end. She had left the girls to their own devices, heading out to meet Grace and Emily.

She couldn't imagine how this would all be if they couldn't have these chats every week. Her little brother Noah wouldn't know her from any other person on the street, and the twins might not remember her too well either. At least this way they could remain in contact, however briefly. Her siblings weren't the only ones counting down the days to their visit.

She was so glad for Hailey, and soon for this new baby her mother and stepfather would be having in weeks' time. It didn't change how she missed Hannah and the boys, along with her father and stepmother, but at least she had one, soon two of her siblings right there at home with her. They had started these chats, which happened sometimes every day, in part because Nora missed them, but also because she didn't want any of them to have to feel like it was them in New York versus her and Hailey in Lima. They were all one family, it was just that they lived in two different states.

Soon though it would be all of them, back in Lima where they could spend a few weeks together, if all went well. Knowing her stepmother, if they were coming down when they were coming, she would probably stay until the birth of the new baby, and that meant several happy weeks, her Puckerman and Hudson siblings all in one place. Nothing in the world could beat that.

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!