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

February 11th 2020

Chapter 42
Their Holidays With Music

The morning of the 31st of December was to be the first one in many days where the only occupants of the house at the end of the lane were those three who called it home. The Tucson Harts had departed back for the city which gave them their nickname the previous morning. It had been agreed, when the decision had been made that they would all be coming to Austin over Christmas, that they would in turn be spending New Year's Eve with the Lanes back in Tucson. It would be the first big sort of family gathering where James would be bringing Abigail and the kids into the fold. As such, Sam had flown out with them. He would return in a few days, in time for the start of his winter semester at school.

"It might be good for him, you know?" Lucas had told Maya, after they watched her siblings march off to grab their plane. She'd looked at him, unsure what he meant. "A few days away from the whole…"

"Girl drama?" Maya had guessed, making him smile. "Maybe… hopefully…"

The house had felt so quiet once they'd gotten back from the airport. They'd spent most of the day seeing to returning things as they were, packing off the spare bed, the sleeping bags… It had been an investment they'd made, factoring in the number of times they'd found themselves hosting any number of family members or friends over the years. They might have turned the room across the hall into a standing guest room, except they never knew exactly when that room might be needed to become something else…

"So, what do you think?" Lucas had asked, once they had finished sorting out the house and collapsed back on to the couch with some satisfaction and a bit of exhaustion. "After all this time with so many guests around the place, and now we have the house to ourselves, I would very much like to take you out, or stay in, whatever you want. Capital Date or lowercase date?" She'd chuckled, the old codes so much a part of them after so long.

"Well…" she'd turned to him. "I'm wondering if there's such a thing as a… I don't know… lower capital… date?" He'd considered this for a moment.

"Fancy dress at home?"

"Yeah," she'd smiled. "I just figure that we might want to pace ourselves a bit, considering tomorrow night…"

"Alright, that's probably a good idea, yeah," he'd agreed.

"Don't think for a second that I'm going to be a slacker about this," she'd 'warned.' "I am talking very best dress, and everything else to go along with it, all to leave you with that look on your face like you might pass out a little."

"Two can play at that game, you know?" he'd grinned, leaning in to kiss her.

"Kind of counting on it," she'd smiled.

Waking up the next morning, the last of the year and the first one they actually spent in their own bed after all the ones up in the attic with Cara, the stillness of the house left them both in that sort of cosy feeling, like neither of them was looking to move an inch out of place. Lucas held on to her, as he would usually do, and Maya breathed quietly in and out, thinking about the years, the one about to end, and the one about to begin.

The one that was ending had been one of the most life altering ones in all her years, she felt. It wasn't just to do with her own life, more so for the collective world that surrounded her. She'd seen friends get married, others become parents… There had been the move back to Austin, and new starts in school for a lot of them, including her little brother, as he'd come and moved in with her and Lucas. And then the two of them… They were here, living – sort of – on their own, in their house, engaged to be married… He was carrying on with his path to becoming a vet, and she might not have been teaching just yet, but she had Stage Ready, and that… that might have been one of her greatest achievements.

As for the year that was about to begin, Maya felt a sort of anticipation for it like she'd rarely felt before. She couldn't wait to see what happen next, what she'd be looking back on, when December 31st rolled around again. What would her work baby look like, one year on? And then the wedding… Well, they hadn't set a date yet, had they? They had sort of come to a conclusion, together, that with everything already going on in their lives at the moment, it would be up to them to decide when it would all happen. That went without saying, sure, but it had more to do with the fact that it could all become very much out of their hands, with people around them making it seem like their engagement put their wedding on a timeline, with a deadline ahead of them, when in fact they were sort of content to exist in their engagement for the time being, as they set their lives further in motion.

It wasn't going to happen this year, she didn't think, but the one after that… maybe in the summer… She had to get back to her sketches, her dress…

"How long before you have to go?" a sleepy voice asked, and Maya smiled, turning herself around until she could be face to face with her bleary-eyed future husband.

"Well…" she hummed, looking past him to get a look at the clock on his night stand. Morning was doing a fine job of getting away from them. "Still got a little time," she assured him, attending to his hair as best she could, as it had gone a bit 'sticky uppy,' as Eliza would say. "Might need all of it to deal with this mess," she scolded, until he stalled her hand with a smile.

"Leave it, I'll take care of it later."

"Yeah, but I like doing it, and I know you enough to know you can't say no to that…" she whispered. After a beat he finally 'relented' and allowed her to continue her work. He supposed there were worse things than lying in bed, watching his future wife fix his hair with a face of concentration and delight. "So," she told him as she kept at it, "Tonight, you're going to be right there at the front."

"You know it," he confirmed.

"Good, because when the countdown starts, yours is the only face I want to be looking at, and when we get to zero…" she trailed on, and he kissed her. "Exactly."

The band had been finding its footing back in Austin since the fall, though on the whole they'd almost kept a low profile. They'd done some shows, and those had been great, but for knowing the presence they had held, in Houston and then here again before all that, they could not say they were going out of their way. That had been by design, allowing themselves time to find themselves again, with this altered line-up where Nadine had joined them again, bringing with her the sounds of her violin along with her voice. And all the while, band practice had seen them work to put together new music, all with the aim that, by the start of the new year, it would be put out there for people to discover, old fans and new alike. They were going to make a splash again.

It would start tonight. They had a gig, with one of the local radio stations, and their countdown to the new year. They'd had a great working relationship with this station over the years. They'd been the first one to play TXNY's music over the air.

Eventually they had made their way downstairs for breakfast, just him and her and the dogs. Maya had gone ahead and showered and dressed – mostly – for the show that night, the better to show it off, while Lucas had gone to get the food and the coffee ready. They were just finishing up when the doorbell rang. They looked at each other, while Trix and Lou ran off barking, to see whether either of them knew who that would be. They did not.

"Wait, I think…" Maya got up to head for the door, grabbing her last piece of bacon on the way, while Lucas followed after her. While the promise of a treat called the dogs back, Lucas went to open the door and found their neighbor from up the lane.

"Happy almost New Year!" Missy Sanderson beamed at him.

"Hey," he smiled back, stepping aside to allow her in. She stepped on to the small carpet, wiping off her boots before taking them off. They'd been seeing a lot of her, whenever they'd look out the windows over the last few weeks, just walking along, on her own at times but most times with her dog. As she'd told them already, she intended to enjoy the snow as much as possible while they had it. This time, her walk had carried her all the way here. "Happy almost New Year to you, too."

"You're doing that show tonight," Missy turned to Maya with an even greater smile.

"I am, yeah," she confirmed.

"I asked my parents if I could go. They said yes, but not until the end, because that's going to be after midnight. So, I was thinking, maybe if I'm with you then they won't mind. Our house is close, so you could drop me off on the way back, it would be easy. I just really want to go…" the girl pleaded, looking to the two of them like she was this close to pulling the big innocent eyes as a tactic.

"Well…" Maya considered this, stealing a look to Lucas, who gave a small shrug to say it was fine by him if it was for her. "Look, I'll call them, and if they say yes then you're on. But if they say no, then that's what it's going to have to be. Deal?"

Missy's parents had said yes, and one look at the giddy girl suggested that she had prepared for the eventuality that they might agree. She was all dressed up and ready for the concert.

She would stay with Lucas until later, when it was time for them to head up for the show, after Maya took off to pick up her bandmates. Sparkles the minivan was all loaded up and, as it had been in past show days, Maya had looked very satisfied that it did exactly what it had been acquired to do. After an afternoon of playing 'go fish,' and a dinner of 'super cheesy grilled cheese,' Lucas and Missy had gotten into the car and headed to join the others who'd be on the audience side of this night's show, anxiously awaiting the presence of those on the band side.

"Sophie is working tonight, but she sends her love," Chiara told Lucas as they hugged upon finding one another.

"The emotion and the person," Asher pointed out, coming along hand in hand with Ray.

"Yes, exactly," Chiara liked this notion very much.

"Both are appreciated," Lucas smiled.

"There's a lot of people," Missy commented as they made their way up front. There was no assigned seating… or seating, for that matter, but they were essentially VIPs, which meant they could be brought right to the front for the show about to begin.

"Good thing you'll be able to see alright," Lucas smiled at her, and the girl had never looked so happy that her parents had agreed for her to be there.

"I like your shirt," she told him.

"It's not often you have a reason to walk around with your girl's face on your clothes without it coming off weird," Zay piped in, appearing at his best friend's side, with an identical shirt. "Hey, we match," he tapped Lucas' arm, and Missy laughed, as he looked around and saw both Dylan and Will also had the same one, like they'd gone all in to show they were the boyfriends, fiancé, and husband of the band.

"I can stand in front of you the whole time and you won't see a thing," he turned to 'warn' his young guest, only making her laugh more.

TXNY had the privilege of being the act that would be on stage when the clock struck midnight, which meant they all had much more to see until then, but that was more than fine by them. It was a great and lively night all around, though of course they were all anticipating the last act of the night, and by the sound of the rest of the audience as they waited on them to come up, so did a lot of others throughout the room. They didn't have to worry about capturing the roar that came on when the band took to the stage, what with the whole matching guy squad – as nicknamed by Rosa – recording the whole thing.

Watching them come up on that stage that night, Maya, and Riley, and Rosa, and Kayla, and Nadine, their presence was instantly electrifying. It reminded Lucas of how much he loved seeing Maya on stage. Looking around that room right now, he could see why she hadn't felt compelled to take that record deal last summer. They didn't even need it. They were doing things on their own terms, and they were making it all happen.

Before they knew it, the host for the night was coming on to lead the countdown to midnight. The whole time the guy spoke, Maya was looking back to Lucas, in the front row, with a smirk that told him she'd be coming for him as soon as moment arrived. The room was of one voice, loudly counting down, and when they called Happy New Year! that loud voice was a single, never-ending cheer. Maya climbed down from the stage and was in her fiancé's arms in three seconds flat, sealing the turn of the year with a kiss, streamers and glitter raining down.

"Next show, we're getting you guys new shirts with 'guy squad' on the back," she teased.

"Fine by me," he declared, holding her in his arms. "Any chance I get to show my support."

"Hey… Want to get married this year?" she asked, with a giddy sort of smile on her face that seemed to echo out on to his face in a heartbeat.

"Do you know what, I kind of do," he laughed as she nodded along.

"Good, I was hoping you'd say that," she brushed glitter from his face before kissing him again.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners