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 61st cycle. Now cycle 62!

TOP 15 COUNTDOWN - Something I do once in a while, if you will recall, where I take my favorite characters, ships, friendships, series (from my daily stories) and put them in order, the number 1 of which gets a seven-chapter story in the end :)
Coming in at number 12: Sunshine Girls 2 series

This is a shift day. There are two updates today.

"Questioning & Helping"
(Nora), Emily (Nellie V.) & Grace - Older Mike/Tina & co
Sunshine Girls 2 series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

After dinner, while her aunt Tina was giving little Naomi her bath, Emily had joined her uncle Mike and her cousin Charlie to play a dancing video game. Emily and Mike both got along fairly well, but the star would always be Charlie. He didn't care how many points he got, choosing the let-loose approach to the game. They were encouraging him when Tina came in, carrying the freshly cleaned Naomi, snug in a blanket.

"Emily, Grace is here to see you," she announced.

"What?" Emily frowned, while Mike paused the game.

"She looks upset," Tina went on, and Emily looked to her little cousin/brother.

"Sorry, I'll be back soon," she promised him.

"Mommy, come play!" Charlie was not thrown by Emily's departure.

"Are you sure you want to take her on?" Mike smirked, which got him an amused glare from his wife.

"Can you take her?" she handed Naomi over to her niece.

"Come on, Nay, we better get out of here," Emily whispered at the one-year-old's ear, carrying her toward the hall. She found Grace sitting in the stairs that led up to the second floor. "Grace?" The girl looked up and Emily saw she'd been crying. "What happened?" she came up, balancing the baby on one side while she sat on the next step down. "Is someone hurt? It's not your mom, is it?" She could hear Grace speak, but she didn't make out a single word. "What?"

"… stool…"

"Stool?" Emily frowned. "Grace, I'm sorry, I'm doing my best, it's bad enough with the accent when you're not crying, and…"

"It's. Too. Late," Grace forced herself to speak as clearly as possible.

"Okay, you need to breathe, you need to… calm down. This should do the trick," she handed Naomi over. Grace didn't resist, taking the child in her arms. They sat there in silence for a few minutes, the only sounds coming from the dance battle in the living room. Emily's baby-therapy did the trick. Soon Grace had stopped crying. She held on to the small girl, who'd fallen asleep. "Grace, what happened? Didn't you go to Nora's to work on the Glee assignment?"

"I did," she confirmed.

"Then why are you crying?"

"Why couldn't she just tell me?" Grace breathed, rubbing, Naomi's back.

"Who, Nora?"

"It's too late now…"

"Too late for wha…" Emily asked, just as Grace turned her eyes to look at her, and then she understood. "Oh no…" she breathed, "Oh, Grace."

"Today was the first time we really spent time together in days. I didn't know how it would feel, but… at dinner it hit me. She looks at me different. I'd never seen it until you told me, but now I can't stop seeing it, I remember… all these times before."

"I don't…" Emily shook her head, confused.

"I do it, too," Grace closed her eyes, brushing gently at Naomi's fine hair. "I never saw it. Why didn't I see it?" she asked herself.

"It's hard to see what your eyes do… they're busy doing the looking," Emily tried to sound cheerier, for her. "Are you going to tell her?"

"Can't do that," Grace shook her head. "She's happy."

"But she's been waiting for you all these years, she'd want to know if…"

"Emily, she's happy," Grace's eyes remained closed. "You wouldn't say that if it wasn't me. You'd get in the face of anyone who messed up Nora being happy, and so would I. Wherever it goes, her and Francesca, I can't get in the way, neither of us. You can't tell, promise me."

"What do you think I've been doing all this time?" Emily felt like her stomach had dropped into her heels. "I hate secrets," she shook her head. "They're so messed up. All of this wouldn't have happened, you two could have…" She took a deep breath. "I broke your radio."

"What?" Grace blinked.

"Four years ago. I said it was Aidan, but it was me."

"What are you doing?"

"Secrets, they're bad news, I need to get rid of them. I broke your radio. I pretended I was sick that one week I stayed home last year, I just needed time to catch up on school work I was falling behind on or they would have made me quit Glee Club. I threw out a present my mother sent me for my birthday three years ago. I didn't even open it, I threw it out because I was upset with her. I don't really hate bacon, I probably like it too much. I was the one who ran through the school in the mascot costume last homecoming, on a dare from Bailey."

"Emily…" Grace stopped her.

"And I think I like Kelly. Some days I think I love him. Is that weird?" she turned back. Grace sighed, moving down one step so she could put an arm around Emily. She did the same, careful to mind her cousin/sister. "Things will get better soon," she spoke quietly. "I don't know how, but they will. And you've got me, no matter what."

"I don't know how to be there and not shut down. Every time I look at her I feel it, stronger, and if I wreck this with Francesca, she'll never forgive me. I lose her no matter what."

Emily had spotted her aunt standing just inside the living room, from over Grace's shoulder. She mimed something and Emily both understood what she said and wished she could hug her right then.

"You're sleeping here tonight, okay?" she told Grace, while her aunt went back to her uncle and Charlie.

After they'd gotten Naomi down in her crib, Grace had called home to ask if she could stay. While she was on the phone, Emily had finally picked up her cell and saw she had a message from Nora.

She relayed what had happened at dinner. She was worried for Grace, thought there might have been something wrong with her or her family, that she was keeping it secret. Emily couldn't tell her Grace was at her house. Another secret she had to keep. All she could do was to say that she had noticed it too, and that they should try and talk to her. She didn't want to put Grace through that, but it would have been too suspicious otherwise.

It had started with Grace. Sometimes she forgot it, but then she'd remember how it had been Grace who had fixed Nora up with Francesca in the first place because she thought they'd hit it off. Behold her success, now they were all in this mess, and Emily feared one or more of them would get hurt before this was all resolved.

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!