A/N: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available!

December 16th 2019

Chapter 350
Their Run Toward Finals

Lucas had been having the strangest dream. He was sitting on the roof of the house with Maya, their feet dangling through the window in the attic. They were holding on to the weather vane, one on either side of the thing. There was a blindfold over Maya's eyes. Oh, and the house was sailing down downstream along the lake, bobbing along.

"Can I look now?" Maya would ask him, again and again.

He woke up to the feeling of wetness on his face, which briefly startled him, like he might actually have been stuck on that roof. Then he opened his eyes and realized that the wet thing was him. He was drooling, or he had drooled. He'd laid his head down on his arm, and his arm was laid across his desk and his notes. He'd fallen asleep while studying.

"What time is it?" he mumbled, patting around the surface of the desk in search of his phone. When he found it and saw the time, he had to wait a few seconds more before his memory kicked in. He was good, he wasn't late. His next exam wasn't for another ninety minutes. "Maya?" he turned around. She wasn't at her desk, nor was she in their bed. He thought again and remembered she had a test earlier than him, one of the TA classes. He unlocked his screen and found a message waiting for him.

Maya: Wasn't sure whether to try and wake you or not and I had to hurry or I would have been late. Meet me at the café when you're done? 366!

It was day three of finals, or, as they'd dubbed it, May Madness. For him and Maya both, somehow, the vast majority of their finals had been squeezed into those first three days of the week, followed by nothing on Thursday, and then she had one more on Friday while he would just be done… tonight. It didn't seem real, it couldn't. How could it all be over so soon? And by 'it' he didn't just mean finals, but the semester, too, and the whole year… whole four years… It was really ending.

Eleven days…

One morning – well, five days ago specifically – Maya had caught him telling himself 'sixteen days.' He couldn't help it, he'd been counting down the days. He couldn't tell her that, of course, so he'd just said he had been counting how many days there were until the wedding, and how he couldn't wait to see how much Zay was probably going to cry. She'd just laughed it off and nodded.

The next morning, she'd been the one to tell him: there were fifteen days left now. And one day after the other they had been pulling the numbers down together. Fourteen, thirteen, twelve, and now… eleven. She didn't even know it, but she was counting down the days before she was presented with a marriage proposal. Later, once he'd actually gone through with it, he'd have to remind her of that.

After a quick jump in the shower, he'd gotten dressed, grabbed his things and headed down for breakfast. The others were all gone, and they'd taken his car, so he headed off to take the bus. He'd barely made it a few steps up the street that he heard a horn and turned to find Tracy Coleman waving from her car. She offered him a ride and he accepted it gladly. It wouldn't be long before he would be done working at the bookstore, and after four years of it, of loving the job, the place, and the people… As much as he knew he was looking forward to being back in Austin, this was one downside with some weight.

Tracy dropped him off at the university after a ride which consisted primarily of her telling him how she was sort of dreading the thought of Rosa being out of the city in a few weeks' time, even if it was just two hours and it could have been way further. It had been easier to deal with her not being in the house because she'd only been two minutes away, so now that she was planning to leave Houston, had already set things in motion… Tracy wasn't going to mention any of this to her daughter, didn't want to make it seem like she didn't support her decision. She was twenty years old now, and sooner or later her mother knew she just needed to trust her to make those choices and take care of herself… Lucas made a mental note that they'd need to have Tracy over for dinner, possibly a few times, before they all left the city.

He had two tests today, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, just as he'd done over the past two days. It wasn't so bad, having them all scheduled that way, he guessed. He could focus and compartmentalize… Once he'd be done with that morning test, he'd then move on to a last stretch of reviewing for the one in the afternoon and that'd be that. Then again, they'd kept not the best for last but rather the hardest, which easily explained how he'd fallen asleep at his desk the way he'd done. He had just been working overtime, making sure he would have covered every base, that he knew his stuff…

"You were mumbling in your sleep," Maya greeted him when he arrived to find her at the café, after his morning test. He dropped into the seat next to her, finally getting to kiss her good morning, good afternoon, almost, by now.

"Anything good?" he asked, vaguely taking in her set up over the table, all she needed for her own review.

"You know, the usual. Your bank code, the location of your secret stash of diamonds…"

"Good thing I trust you then," Lucas smiled.

"You made it on time then?" Maya asked, turning to sit sideways and face him, absently twisting and flipping her pen between her fingers.

"Tracy gave me a ride, yeah," he told her. "I would have made it with the bus anyway, but that worked, too. She is really not looking forward to Rosa moving away."

"It'd be pretty sad if she was though."

"Yeah, okay, fair," he chuckled. "How about you, how was it?"

"I don't know, I mean I've said it before, I don't like supervising tests, everything's so quiet and I don't actually have a test of my own to fill out, I just have to watch all of them, and what if I get distracted because I'm bored and then someone cheats, on my watch."

"You're studying to be a teacher," he pointed out.

"Yeah, but that's not the same thing, I won't have anything like that going on," she waved it off.

"You never know. You could end up changing things, have lectures like Professor Robinson… You could be Professor Hart," he stated, making her smirk.

"Nice as that sounds…"

"Sounds better than 'nice,'" he gave her a very loaded look, which just kept her smile going.

"Focus," she told him, pointing a finger in 'warning.' "As I was saying, nice as that sounds, that's not what I'm aiming to do, that's not where I'm meant to be. I know where that is, I can feel it," she tapped her hand over her heart.

"True," Lucas nodded. He knew it, too, how could he not? He'd been seeing it more and more, just in the way she was with those kids, students as much as his family, and her family, and just… That was where she belonged. The way her expression drifted just a hair, he knew where her mind was going now. It was going to the part that worried about what would happen if she didn't find a posting. So he just kept holding her gaze, and he passed on that firm belief he had in him, that she was meant for this, and that because of this… There really wouldn't be anything to stop her. Sooner or later, she would be a teacher, and any kid coming through her class would be lucky to have her.

He was done with this very last final of the semester before Maya would be done with hers. Stepping out of the classroom, it felt like he could breathe a bit easier, and he really wished he and Maya could be at this point together, except she still had one more test to sit, on Friday morning, so she wasn't at the celebration part yet. Still, he went off and sat outside the classroom where she'd be and waited for her there. Every time he heard the door open, he looked up, and when it wouldn't be her he would go back to looking at his phone, where he was texting back and forth with Zay over wedding things. He and Nadine were flying down in a few days, finally…

Speaking of finally, on the fifth door check, it was Maya coming out. He got up and grabbed his bag. She had hers hanging from one shoulder and was fishing through it. When she stopped in front of him, she produced a plastic container filled to the brim with some familiar looking cookies.

"Are those…"

"GiGi's cookies? You tell me," she popped the top of the container and let him smell what was inside. Those were absolutely the genuine article.

"But she's still laid out with that cold," Lucas recalled. They were all concerned whether she'd make it to the wedding, even if she kept telling anyone who'd listen that the grim reaper would have to try his luck with her to keep her from seeing her Isaiah getting married. "She couldn't have made…" She was giving him this grin all of a sudden, and for what it insinuated, he genuinely felt stunned. "She didn't…"

"She did," Maya kept on grinning. "And I pulled it off, imagine that."

"She gave you the recipe… Seriously? The 'me and my ghost alone' recipe?"

"Okay, well, turns out she and Nadine got to talking, the last time she and Zay were in town. I don't know exactly what she said. All I do know is that the last time we were out in Austin, for the venue check with the families, she made me roll her chair outside."

"I remember that, yeah," Lucas nodded.

"Right, well, she handed me this envelope. Wasn't sure what it was, but I opened it, and there was a sheet of paper, with the recipe written on it. She told me that she decided she would rather leave a legacy than a mystery. So she chose five people she would give that recipe to. I had to promise I would tell no one, not even you, and I would keep that secret and take it with me until, later on in my life, I might find someone to take it over." She smiled, and he could just see how touched she was that she'd been picked.

"Who else, do you know?"

"Nadine," Maya nodded, "Zay's cousin Dani, and a couple other granddaughters, I think."

"So, you're the only one outside the family…"

"I'm not outside the family, I'm with you, Huckleberry," she tapped his arm, and he smiled again. Looking at it that way, she was probably right. He and Zay had been stuck at the hip for so long, he'd been an honorary Babineaux most of his life. He also appreciated that GiGi trusted in his and Maya's continued connection.

"Wait, so she gave it to Nadine and not Zay?" he realized.

"Oh, yeah," Maya laughed. "He was just a little upset when he realized this. Nadine brought him back with the fact that she would make them for him whenever he asked. Speaking of which…" she held out the container to him. He grabbed one of the cookies.

"When did you…"

"Early this morning, while you were drooling all over yourself," she beamed.

"So, when you said you had to hurry…"

"Eat," she cut him off. She was probably anxious to find out what he thought. He'd been eating GiGi Babineaux' cookies a lot longer than her, he would know if they really held up.

"Woah…" he spoke, after taking a bite and chewing.

"Woah good or woah…"

"No, they're perfect," he told her.

"Do you mean that or are you just saying that to make me feel good, because…"

"I would never do that," Lucas reminded her. "Besides, you'd probably see right through me."

"True, true," Maya nodded to herself before smiling at him again. "I was so sure I'd mess them up, I mean it's The Cookies," she spoke dramatically. "Anyway, I was looking for the right time to try out the recipe, and this morning I thought 'well, he's got his last final ever out here…' so trying it out for the first time ever at seven this morning sounded like a good idea. You know, baking is surprisingly helpful to get me all focused. Never saw that coming."

"Have you tried one yet?" he asked, getting an inkling that she might not have, because…

"No, I wanted you to try them first," she shrugged. He nudged the container back toward her as he took another bite of his cookie. She took one and bit off a good chunk. "Woah…"

"See?" he smiled. "You should send some to GiGi, she'll be happy to try them."

"Are you nuts, I'm not putting myself out there like that," she moved to close the container, but he held up his hand like 'wait, can I have another?' "Oh, here, they're for you anyway," she offered him container and lid both.

"Hey… Thanks for the cookies," he told her, because it needed saying. She smiled, and he leaned in to kiss her.

"Two more days…" she sighed as they walked off toward the parking lot.

"I know," he nodded.

"There's no point in me spending all of tomorrow studying, so I think I'm going to take the morning off," Maya told him. That sounded like a good plan. "We can go out for breakfast, then after that we get back to the house… finally try and tackle some more packing." She had been putting off doing a lot of it up in their room, he knew, and that wasn't going to work much longer. It wasn't like they had a deadline, not with Sophie and Chiara, but still… It had to be done. "Then, lunch, then studying… For me, anyway. Although if you should find yourself wanting to stick around…"

"Moral support?" he guessed.

"No, I just like to look at you," she teased, reaching in for a second cookie.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners