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 69th cycle. Now cycle 70!

GLEEKATHON FOURTH ANNIVERSARY CYCLE - It's October again, which means another year of Gleekathon is about to wrap up! At the end of the month it will have been four years since I've started doing my daily stories! As always, I will be celebrating this with a special cycle of stories to touch on my favorite stories I've done throughout the year. There will be two installments each on Thursdays, Saturdays, Mondays, and Wednesdays. The remaining days will feature, as they have in the last several months, new chapters of the latest story in my Doctor Who/Glee crossover series. As far as the anniversary stories go, it will be as I've done before, taking those past stories and either doing a prequel, sequel, POV swap, genre swap, alternate ending, or additional scenes.

This story is a SEQUEL to "Elevations & Ramifications" a Sunshine Girls 2 series story originally posted on November 20 2012.

(This is a shift day, which means there will be two stories posted today!)

"Mending & Reacting"
Emily (OC; Nellie V.), Nora (AU!Beth), Grace (OC)
Sunshine Girls 2 series extra
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

She would have been happy to go in and check on Grace after she'd gone to get ice, but Emily insisted that she would take care of it and ran back into the house, leaving Nora alone with young Charlie. The boy kept her busy enough that she didn't think about what was taking the girls so long to return. He was still very aware that it was his throwing of the ball which had caused Grace to be hurt, and no matter the fact that they had all told him it was nothing but a small bruise, to him it might as well have been a gushing wound and he would have felt just as guilty.

"Hey, come on, Chuck," she pulled the boy up in her arms with enough of a flourish that he couldn't keep from laughing. She was the only one who got to call him that somehow. "Grace will be back in a minute, and I think she might even want to keep tossing the ball around with you, alright?" she looked him in the eye. She was getting pretty good at dealing with small boys after her brothers, so Charlie was a breeze.

"She will?" Charlie asked. Nora gave him a nod and a smile.

"And you know what, I would, too. So what do you think? You want to toss me the ball first?" she asked him, and he was only hesitant for a second or two more before his smile escaped its confines and she gave him one back. "Go on, you throw to me first," she nodded to where he'd left the ball and he ran off to get it. He tossed it and she caught it easily. "That's it, good job!" she told him and he was so very proud. "Alright, ready to catch?" she asked and his arms went wide. "Well, that's…" she chuckled quietly, throwing the ball. She thought for sure he would drop it, with the way he was waiting on the ball, but he swooped in and got it like it was nothing. "Nice!" she clapped, and Charlie bounced the ball against the ground like he'd just scored a touchdown or something like that. Finally she saw the door open, and out came Emily. It took a few seconds more for Nora to notice… "Where's Grace?"

"She, uh, she had to go?" Emily hooked her thumb back at the door. Nora paused; something wasn't right.

"Now? Why didn't she come to tell me first?"

"Well she was in a hurry," Emily nodded. "She remembered she had to be home tonight, so she said to tell you sorry and that she'd see you at school."

"That's not like her, forgetting," Nora noted.

"Happens to the best of us… Happens to me all the time," Emily shrugged, then bowed her head awkwardly. That was an understatement.

"I don't know, she's been acting weird for a few days, don't you think?"

"Has she?" Emily played coy, and she knew that was a mistake right away. There was no getting that past Nora; she'd not only realize that something was going on, but she'd also figure out Emily knew what it was. How exactly she ended up keeping secrets for people was beyond her, especially when they knew how bad she was at keeping them.

"Emily, what the hell…"

"Hey!" Emily reacted, remembering her little brother/cousin was standing right there, listening to every word they were saying. "Hey, Charlie, how about hide and seek, wanna do that?" she asked the boy, making sure to keep her voice upbeat and enticing.

"Okay!" he started to run for a bush.

"No, no, inside the house!" she called after him and he immediately veered around to run for the house. They'd tried it outside before and ended up looking for him for two hours. No more outside hide and seek.

"Can't find me!" he called after them before disappearing through the door. Emily was going after him when Nora got hold of her arm and stopped her.

"What's wrong with Grace?" she asked, and Emily could hear the concern underlying, which only made it harder for her to brush it off.

"Nothing, alright? She had to go, that's what it is. Now, can we go and look for Charlie before he finds some crawl space or another and gets stuck?"

"Why won't you tell me? I know it's not nothing, so, what, did she tell you not to tell me?" They were just getting to the door, and Emily was glad her friend couldn't see her face.

"Oh my g… Nora, would you quit being so paranoid?" she laughed and hoped it would pass for real this time, instead completely terrified and caught in the headlights.

"I know you know something, you can't pretend that's not true."

"Well, 'know' is saying a lot, I…" Emily tried to deflect, and as much as she was trying to find some exit to dive into, it would be Nora who handed it to her.

"You don't think… Maybe she's met someone?" She looked back to Nora, making to think about this.

"Maybe, do you think? But who?" she pondered.

"I… I don't know?" Nora shrugged, looking to the side. She still had difficulty discussing Grace the love life she might have beyond them. "Any of the guys in Glee Club? What if she's getting back together with Jay?"

"If she has, she hasn't told me anything," she swore, and that being the truth, she'd been able to make herself sound as honest as possible.

"Are you looking for me yet?" Charlie's holler came from across the house, which forced them out of their Grace discussion.

"Well we're going to find you now if you don't stay quiet!" Emily hollered back, pointing in the direction of his voice. They went, and in twenty seconds' time they had found Charlie, hiding behind the washer and drier. "How many times did Mom and Dad tell you not to go there?" Emily scolded him. "Come on, it's almost time to eat, go wash up." After he'd run to the bathroom, Emily turned to Nora. "Are you still staying?" Nora looked distracted for a beat, but then she smiled and nodded.

"Yeah, absolutely."

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!