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 78th cycle. Now cycle 79!

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

Grace found Ethan waiting for her at the bus stop. They walked the rest of the way to her house, talking about their respective days at school.

With how much of her life was shared with both Nora and Emily, it felt strange to have a friend that was almost entirely her own. Obviously Emily knew him, for having fixed them up together, but this was different. Ethan was kind and understanding to the point where it was almost surprising. He had not been vexed in any way about the way their date had panned out, and when she'd started telling him the real reason why, he had been someone she knew right away she could go to, if she wanted to reach outside her usual circle of friends.

He'd been of particular use in those weeks following Nora's break from Francesca, as she and Grace navigated this road to whenever they could consider themselves 'ready' to date.

They arrived at Grace's house, where they both decided they might as well have gotten through their respective assignments – or more to the point, Grace had a tendency of needing to get all her homework done before anything else or it would only distract her. Except this time, where it was the other way around, and she wasn't so much distracted by her homework as she was distracted by everything else.

"Tough one?" Ethan asked, and she blinked, staring at him. He nodded back to her notebook, where she'd proceeded to draw up spirals and circles and lines all along the top of the page, while her notes were being ignored.

"Oh…" she reached for her eraser and began scratching out the doodling. "Sorry, I…"

"What's that?" he squinted, still looking at the page.

He'd thought it was all pencil, all her doing while she'd zoned out, but as she was erasing it all, he spotted the thing which had served as the center of those doodles. This part was in ink. It looked like a cloud with an overdramatic crying face, droplets of rain spewing about like tears.

"Nora had to borrow my notes yesterday," Grace slowly explained. "When she does, she'll leave something like this behind to make me laugh," she beamed. There were clouds and dogs and matchstick men through most of her notebooks, all Nora's handiwork.

"Grace, just ask her out already," he fixed her with a smirk.

"Me?" she blinked.

"Well I'm not going to do it," Ethan pointed out. "I mean by all you've told me, she sounds like a great girl, but well, she's gay… and I'm not… and also a guy… But I'll do it if it means that much to you."

"I mean," Grace rose her voice so he'd stop. "I should let her do it, shouldn't I? She'll know when she's ready more than I will."

"She is ready," Ethan insisted.

"How would you…" He picked up her notebook and held it up for her to see the cloud.

"Do you know what this looks like to me? She's flirting with you." Grace took the notebook back like a precious object he wasn't worthy of. "All you've been doing for the past half hour, instead of studying, is fixate on that thing. Ask her out."

Now she remembered what had made her start drawing around the cloud. When Nora had handed her the notebook back, Grace had seen it and asked what 'his' problem was. Nora then informed her that he'd dropped his rain hose and got so upset about it that he cried hard enough to cause a deluge. It was a story her father used to tell her when she was little, which always cracked her up. Or was it her stepfather? Grace didn't remember which of Nora's dads it had been who told her about the cloud, but either way, she'd been remembering the story and then she'd started drawing up that deluge, in what way she could, without actually covering up her notes.

And right then, she knew he was right. She wanted so bad to make that first move. That revelation taking seat in her heart may not have created a deluge like the cloud losing its hose, but her heart did beat mad like a thunderstorm, so close enough…

"How… How do I…" she wondered aloud. She'd never asked anyone out before, and she didn't know what she would do about it yet, but for sure there was something about the whole situation that made her feel like, when she did ask Nora out, there should have some aspect of grandness to it, like 'well it's about time.'

"I don't know if I'm the best one to ask here, but if you want my help, you've got it," he promised. She smiled, nodding.

"Ah, Ethan!" Neither of them had heard the door. Grace's mother had returned and she was now standing just outside the dining room, looking at them. "Will you stay for dinner?" Mrs. Mackenna asked. Ethan looked at Grace, and she nodded. This would give them more time to figure out what she should do when she asked Nora out. "Fantastic," her mother nodded before moving off into the kitchen.

"She likes you," Grace teased her friend. "I think she still thinks we're going out. I told her we weren't, but…"

"Hey, I get free food, I'm not complaining," Ethan shrugged, and Grace laughed. "Better get finished here," he nodded down to their abandoned homework.

"We should," she agreed. Now that there was the promise of developments, she could finally focus.

After they'd finished, they went up to her room. Grace's estimation about her mother's approval of Ethan was as good as confirmed by the fact she didn't tell them to keep the door open, either this or she trusted Grace enough. While they waited for dinner to be ready, they swapped ideas as to the best way for Grace to ask Nora out. They didn't reach any sort of consensus there, but they weren't giving up. Everyone had waited long enough.

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!