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 62nd cycle. Now cycle 63!

"Rising & Moving"
Nora (AU!Beth)/Francesca (OC) (Grace, Emily)
Sunshine Girls 2 series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

Nora had never really had much of a love life until she started going out with Francesca. She hadn't thought about it too much, but she had never had those moments of sneaking off to go meet someone, or being anxious or nervous about being near them… not when they felt the same way in return. She'd never had a girlfriend. She'd had dates, very few and not exactly what one might call successful; one had not even been completed. But she'd never been in a relationship. Now she was, and she felt like someone with new glasses. It would take some time to adjust to it; she was still clumsy as hell.

She didn't want to think of why that might be, didn't want to let herself think that it might have something to do with Grace and how she'd felt for her. She wanted to tell herself that she was moving on and that this part of her life, of holding on to the idea of a girl who would never feel for her the way she did in return, was done, but she knew that would have been nothing more than delusion. Deep in her heart, Grace Mackenna would always be there. But since she could not be in her whole heart, then she had to open herself to new possibilities, like how she was when Francesca Saito was around.

She was coming over that day, so they could work on a project for English. She hadn't caught on to how anxious she was being until Hailey's giggles had reached her ear. She turned and spotted her little sister hiding just outside her bedroom door.

"What's so funny?" she made like she was going to chase after her and the small blonde squeaked and ran away. Nora smirked, turning back to the window. "You're being ridiculous," she sighed to herself.

But then she spotted her, rolling up the street on her bike, and her heart had done a flip. She'd have all of a minute to stop acting like an idiot. She grabbed her books and ran off down the stairs, putting them on the dining room table and reaching to fix her hair. She caught her father giving her a curious look as he went to answer the door; she was playing it cool.

"Hey, I'm not late, am I?" Francesca asked when Finn escorted her into the room.

"No, no, absolutely not," Nora promised her before looking back to her stepfather. When he got the hint, he blinked and left the room, while Nora quietly let out a breath.

"Is he alright?" Francesca asked.

"Yeah, he's fine," Nora promised.

"Are you?" she asked, noticing the look on her face, and Nora smiled.

"I'm good." Francesca smiled back.

"Right," she nodded before leaning in to kiss her hello. Something else I'm not used to… but I'd be more than happy to work on getting there. She wasn't entirely sure that her cheeks wouldn't be bright red when they pulled apart. The whole reason why she had decided that they should work down here was so she wouldn't let herself get distracted by privacy. They had work to do, before anything else.

"Did you finish the reading?" she asked.

"I did, last night. I was up until two, but I finished it. You?"

"Oh, I'd already read it, but I reread it, just in case," Nora explained.

"Why am I not surprised?" Francesca put her own books down and the girls sat, setting up. "I guess we can start with the questions, right?"

"Sounds good, I…" she pulled out her notepad, then stopped. "Of course, forgot my…" she moved to get up, then stopped when she saw Francesca was holding out one of hers. "… pen." She took it with a smile and sat back down.

"You know, I'm kind of surprised you picked me for this."

"You are?" Nora looked up. "How come?"

"I just figured you'd pick Grace. Isn't this book right up her alley?" Francesca asked, and Nora's hand went to the book.

She had read the book back in January, but Grace had read it over the previous summer. She had been raving on about it so much, and Nora had said that she'd have to check it out at some point. By the holidays though, she hadn't read it yet, and so Grace had included it in her Christmas presents. The two of them and Emily had had this tradition from the first year they had all been friends. They would have one present for each of their friends that they could open on Christmas morning with their other presents, but they would also have something else in a sort of Secret Santa set up, that they would open together the day before. The idea was that they wouldn't know which of the other two had gotten it for them, but when she had opened her Secret Santa gift last Christmas, and it had been that book, she knew Emily had nothing to do with it.

"Yeah, but I wanted to work with you," she smiled back to Francesca before they got to work.

Francesca Saito wasn't blind. Nora may not have been aware that she knew about her feelings for Grace, but she had known, right from the start. If she was honest, it had played a part in making her doubt whether she wanted to let things keep escalating between herself and Nora. She knew for how much she was hesitating about placing herself in that situation, it was born out of the fact that she was growing more and more attached to the tall blonde, maybe even something close to love, and she knew something like this could end with her heart breaking. But then she had her impulses, she had her courage, and it told her to take the leap anyway. She was so glad she had gone through with it, too, because they were happy, properly happy the both of them together, or at least she was, and she was fairly sure Nora was, too.

When they had finished their work, they had found their way back up to her room, and when the door had closed, Francesca had given in to those impulses once again, touching Nora's shoulder so she would turn around and face her. When she did, Francesca slipped her hand to rest at the small of the girl's back, coming closer so that, when she kissed her, Nora's back was to her door. It began slow, but then Francesca was pressed against her, and Nora had responded by deepening the kiss and reaching up to weave her fingers in her hair, and she smiled.

"What?" Nora asked pulling back for air for a moment before kissing her again.

"Nothing… It's… silly…" Francesca insisted, her free hand moving to Nora's side, and the blonde paused, both of them out of breath.

"Then definitely tell me," she smirked. "You're always… playing it so cool, if you're… feeling silly, I want to know about it, and maybe… we can be silly together." That damn spark in those blue eyes would be the end of her.

"It's just, I… I'm really happy right now," she admitted, and Nora laughed.

"And that's silly?"

"It is! Not the happiness so much as… what it does to me," Francesca explained, breathing softly now.

"It does things to you?" Nora went on chuckling. "What kind of thing?" she asked. Francesca responded, not with words. She responded with a kiss, one to her lips, her jaw, inching down her neck. She responded with one hand crawling under the hem of her shirt, tracing lines on her back, with the other coming up her side, wanting to be bolder but being afraid of going too far.

She had been caught off guard by the sound of a click, a sound like… Her eyes travelled down to see Nora's hand still on the door knob, where she had just turned the lock. Francesca looked back up to her, unable to simply believe she was understanding the signal right. The way Nora was staring back at her, she might even have underestimated the signal.

"Happy, right?" she asked.

"Yeah," Francesca blinked.

"What other things does it do to you, being happy?" Are you sure about this? There was not a hint of hesitation in her eyes, no fear, only wanting. More importantly, there was nothing about her that said she might be doing this for any other reason than that she wanted to be with her. They would both be getting what they wanted.

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!