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 67th cycle. Now cycle 68!
"Someday We'll Dance"
(Older) Mike/Tina + Lily Chang, age 6
Chang Squared series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)
Lily Chang was only six years old, but she had dreams enough to take her to the stars and back.
Today was the first day of school, and she was anxious, more anxious than any child could ever be expected to be on a day like this. She wanted to pick her own clothes – her parents agreed, within reason – and her long black hair would be pulled into two buns on the top of her head, as she requested. She had patience for her hair getting tugged and brushed in such a way as to stun her mother, who recalled moments like this as though she'd been in some torture chamber.
They had lived in Los Angeles her whole life, though every year, a few times, they would fly back to Ohio, where her parents were from. She wasn't sure what she liked best. On the one hand, LA was her life, where her house and her friends were. But then Lima… Lima felt like it was part of her, too. It was the place where her parents had started, where they had become what they were now. She may have only been six, but she knew plenty.
Once upon a time, 'Mom and Dad' had been Tina and Mike, who'd gone to school together their whole lives apparently, who'd been almost-friends for several years, until they'd become proper friends, fell in love… Then the years would pass, and they would marry and have a child, their daughter and love of their life – as Lily would tell it – one Lillian Marie Chang. That was one part of their lives, a great one, truly, but hardly the one Lily loved the most. She liked telling the other story, the one with the dancing.
She knew back when he was younger, her father had loved to dance, but only in secret. He would dance in his room, in his basement, hardly ever anywhere that someone else would see him. He was a football player, and he was good at that, but it wasn't what he really wanted to do.
Then there was her mother, who had been learning for a while, taking lessons, but she was shy, so not many people got to see her either. It was hard to imagine her mother as shy, the way she knew her now. She didn't have many friends at the time, if any at all, and that made Lily sad, too.
But then things changed, or as she'd cleverly intoned after seeing the word written, things had 'Chang-ed.' Her mother and father had grown as friends, and it was her mother who'd pulled her father out of his shell, got him to take lessons with her. Eventually he'd stopped playing football, and he'd devoted himself to dance. They had joined Glee Club at their school, and from there, that was where things had gotten interesting.
After they had finished high school, they had continued to study dance. Her mother was a great singer, too, and her father wasn't half bad either, but it had been the dance that brought them together and eventually won out. It had taken them to Chicago, and then, when opportunity came knocking, all the way to Los Angeles, where they had settled down together. They'd been there a year when they got married.
Today her parents both made their living in the world of dance, both as performers and choreographers. They had started making a name for themselves fairly quickly. Lily thought it was all magical, and it was the basis of her deepest dreams: she wanted to be a dancer, too. She had been in lessons for as long as she could remember, and though her parents said she had struggled in the beginning, she had found her feet, most definitely not two left ones. The biggest lesson her parents could have given her was one she felt the closest to: Keep working, keep trying, because it won't just come to you.
Her mother had done up her hair after she'd gotten dressed in her favorite green dress, and then she'd gone dashing in search of her father. She found him already looking through videos from a rehearsal he'd done, and she stood at the door to their basement studio, peeking in. Without looking away from the screen, Mike had pulled at a chair nearby and planted it next to where he sat: he'd seen her, so she went running up and sat next to him.
"What do you think?" he asked his junior colleague. Lily looked at the video intently for a minute before pointing to a girl on the right.
"She's too slow," she declared. Mike paused the video and turned to look at her with a smile.
"All ready to go?" he asked her. She nodded. "Are you sure?" he nodded down to her bare feet.
"I can't pick," she shook her head.
"Alright then, let's see," he got up, picking up his daughter from the chair and carrying her under his arm like she weighed nothing.
"Watch my head!" Lily laughed, batting her feet and holding on to her father's arm, as though she had any expectation at all for him to drop her.
With her shoes picked – she was partial to a good boot – all she had to do was get her bag and they could go. Both of her parents would be taking her to school that day.
She had high expectations for this day. When they were her age, that was when they'd met, she knew. She also knew it didn't mean she would meet the person she would marry, but either way, something just as exciting could happen.
"Right, got your bag?" Tina asked as they stepped out of the car.
"Yes," she tapped at one of the straps.
"Got your lunch?" Mike asked, and she held up her lunch box. "Good, you hold on to that," he told her, and it made her mother laugh.
"What's so funny?" Lily asked.
"I'll tell you later," Mike told her, then sighed. Why did they look so sad all of a sudden? She was just going to school, she'd come back. "How about a hug?" he asked, and he had about a second and a half to brace himself to catch her on the leap. "Kisses?" he asked, and she planted one on his right cheek, and two on the left, as always. She was passed on to her mother, who held her just as tightly. She would get two kisses on the right cheek, and one on the left.
Back on her feet, Lily Chang ran off, waving to her parents as she went. This would be good. She could just feel it.
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!