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


March 10th 2020

Chapter 70
Their Fear For the Reality

For how slowly the minutes and the hours had seemed to go by on that first night, it felt like a trick had been played on them when they realized a week had gone by. They'd just fallen into this rhythm, being out here on this extended and unplanned 'vacation' away from Austin, and work… not so much school. Much as he didn't feel he was much in the spirit for class, Lucas knew he couldn't take all this time off and fall behind in class. He may have looked at Sophie like she was family, but the university wouldn't see it the same way. Besides, his school was roughly halfway between here and home, so he'd only have to drive about as long as he normally did. Bishop had already insisted on driving him, and so he did, every day he'd gone since. On that first day, he'd been brought his books by Robbie and Ramona, who'd picked up his bag after being let into the house by Sam.

In the meantime, Maya was finding it all too easy to make use of her time in Houston. Sophie had made her promise not to spend her whole days at the hospital with her, and so she'd held up her end of the bargain. She would be there though, twice every day. She'd show up in mid-morning, and she'd stay there through lunch, courtesy of the speed round of cooking they'd done that first night. After that, she'd go and spend time with Pappy Joe, or she'd meet up with some old classmates… She'd visited Shae, and the Hillards, and of course had dinner with their hosts every evening, along with Lucas, when he'd get back from school. And then, in the evening, they'd be back at the hospital so that Lucas could also spend time with Sophie and Chiara.

It had taken until day three before Doctor Gwendolyn Barrett felt confident enough to declare that all tests and examinations showed Sophie to be out of danger. If she continued to be seen to, and if she did as she was told, she could well make a full recovery. As to whether this recovery would mean she could get back to work, Dr. Barrett could only say that this would be up to the doctors who would continue to oversee Sophie's case once she returned to her own practice in San Francisco.

"This is great news, right?" Chiara had been beside herself with joy after the doctor had left the room. It was just them two and Maya at the time, setting up for lunch.

"Depends," Sophie smiled at her. "Can I make my bad jokes now?"

"Why do you do this to me?" Chiara shook her head, though she was still smiling.

"I can't help it, being cooped up in here, poked and prodded morning, noon, and night, the beeping… I can either be a bad patient, or I can make light of my near demise…"

"You know, it's a real shame…" Maya had spoken up from where she sat. Sophie and Chiara had turned to look at her. "If it was Halloween you'd make a killing with the trick or treaters." Sophie had given her such a smile at this; Chiara couldn't even be mad at it.

"Fine, fine, make the jokes, give me a heart attack, go ahead," she'd raised her hands in 'surrender.'

"Well…" Sophie had started, hesitated, and turned to Maya with a one-eyed look like 'you do it.'

"Better in a hospital than anywhere else, right?" she'd gladly taken the hit, making Sophie laugh, much as it hurt for a few beats, she would have deemed it worth it.

Now as the week had gone by, Lucas was at the hospital with Maya on the 'big day' when the bandage had finally come off from over Sophie's eye. It introduced the presence of some still healing bruises, but on the whole it wasn't nearly as bad as they had imagined it. Whatever it had looked like in the beginning, they never had to know.

"How's the vision?" Maya asked, after she and Lucas came back into the room. They'd stepped out while they'd taken off the bandage and checked everything out.

"I just spent a week with only one eye working. It was hard at first, now it's almost the other way around…" Sophie frowned. "And I'm going to have this scar now, see," she pointed as best she could, which was just a bit off for the time being. "Tell me you see it, my aim's a bit off right now," she frowned.

"But it'll get back to normal," Maya promised before her friend could veer down a path where she'd start worrying about what this might mean for her ever wearing that badge again. "And I do see the scar, here," she took Sophie's hand and helped her point it out.

"I want to scratch it so much…" she sighed. Chiara said nothing, but she made a noise that suggested she'd been dealing with these flights of fidgetiness of her wife's for days now. "I won't, I won't," Sophie promised, letting her hand back down. "I don't actually feel like creating any reasons to extend my stay here," she turned a loving smile to Chiara, who could not hold up against that and leaned in to kiss her and mutter something in Italian that made Sophie laugh.

"Didn't catch that," Maya teased.

"Catch what?" Sophie played innocent. "Alright, come on, I've got another itch to scratch and this one won't involve risks of infection or bleeding. What's going on with you two? I know this week hasn't been ideal, but any updates on the wedding?"

Maya and Lucas looked to one another. At this point, they had to wonder. Should they tell her, tell them both?

"What's wrong?" Sophie asked, seeing that turn like a giant 'uh-oh.'

"We actually decided to… postpone the wedding," Lucas revealed. Sophie and Chiara stared back at him, wide-eyed. They looked to Maya now, like they needed her to confirm it.

"Next summer, not this year," she nodded. It was hard for either of them not to sound disappointed about it, even though they'd made the choice for their own very valid reasons, reasons they did not regret.

"But why?" Sophie shook her head, even as Chiara seemed to understand. She looked sad, but also just thankful, too.

"Because you need time to recover fully, and we'd rather wait a year than to not have you there at a hundred percent. We both agreed that it wouldn't be right otherwise, not without you," Maya explained. Sophie opened her mouth to reply, but she had no words. She reached out her hand so Maya would come over and, when she did, Sophie carefully sat up, just enough that she might – very carefully – hug her friend.

"This is madness… Thank you," she whispered.

It had been their last day in Houston. Oh, they would come back, of course, as often as possible, they would, but now they needed to go back to Austin, to get back into their lives. They'd made the drive back, stopping back at the house to drop off their bags and to shower and change, before going on to the Hunter Hart house. They couldn't very well just pick up Sam and the dogs and head back again, no. They were expected for dinner at her parents' house, and his parents would be coming over, too.

"We're going to have to tell them, aren't we?" Maya had asked as they drove up the lane. "About the wedding…"

"Yeah…" Lucas had sighed. Maya had been quietly seeing to making the phone calls they needed to make, the cancellations… They hadn't figured out the new date yet, so they couldn't even see about rescheduling yet.

It had felt as though they'd been away for a month instead of a week as they walked back into their house. Up in their room, they could still find their PJs from that night where they had been dropped in order to get dressed as quick as possible.

"Maya, guess what!" Nellie was there to greet them when they arrived at the Hunter Hart house later on.

"You missed me?" Maya guessed, snatching up the six-year-old, to a chorus of giggles she could have listened to for hours.

"No!"

"No? What do you mean, no?" Maya tickled her sister, to more giggles.

"I mean, yes, but that's not what you had to guess!"

"Alright, I don't know then, what is it?"

"We get to keep Max!"

"Wait, what?" Lucas asked, about a second before Maya was able to say the same. "What about the people who were supposed to pick him up?"

"They couldn't take him anymore. But he's happy here, so Mommy and Daddy said he can stay!" she beamed.

The girls had been so upset, the previous fall, when they'd had to put down two of their dogs. Maya had been even more so, after having raised them from puppies. They'd lost Queen and then Ghost, two weeks in between. Poor Tuck had been the saddest of all, to see his brother and sister go. But as both Shawn and Katy would tell it, having Max around – along with Trix, Lou, and Archer – had been lifting the eight-year-old dog's spirits day by day. The proof was right in how he'd come up to greet Maya and Lucas that day. Just like that, one potential misfortune for Max had turned the other way around, for him and many more.

For happy dogs, they could not have outdone Trix and Lou. The two of them had come bolting toward their humans, who'd been gone for so long, and they had jumped and circled and jumped some more, throwing in enough kisses to make up for lost time. It had been impossible for them to get away from them – not that they would have wanted to – until the Friars had arrived and they had soon found themselves around the dinner table.

As was to be expected, the first topic had been Sophie and the progress of her recovery. She would be left bedridden for some time still, due to the conflict of her injuries preventing her from walking unassisted, or from assisting herself in said walking with the aid of anything like crutches. She could only get around after being – very carefully – helped into a wheelchair, which she could not push herself. Her mother had rearranged her work schedule so she might be on hand to look after her, short of moving her back into the house over in Austin. Much as the proximity would have been helpful where her friends were concerned, Sophie was determined to convalesce in her own home. Her mother would not argue with this. Instead, she would simply see to it that Sophie was provided with what assistance she required. This could only happen once she left the hospital, of course, and that wasn't happening just yet.

"Why do you keep looking at him?" Gracie asked Maya at one point, and of all the people she could have suspected to be busted by, it was not her Mouse Mouse. But now that she'd said it, and everyone had overheard, they suddenly had many more eyes aimed at them.

"Maya?" her mother asked, with a tone like 'is everything alright?'

She looked to Lucas at her side. He gave a small shrug. They were either going to be understanding or they wouldn't for some reason. They really didn't see it going badly, but they just weren't looking forward to questions, and they were definitely going to get a lot of those. They had spent most of the ride over here tonight trying to lock down how to start the conversation smoothly without being abrupt or saying anything that might lead their parents to thinking they were about to become grandparents. 'We have news' or anything along those lines had been stricken off the options in two seconds flat.

"Because of what happened with Sophie… because of the kind of… timetable we're looking at with her recovery," Lucas started them off.

"And because she really means that much to both of us, together and individually," Maya added with a nod.

"We decided to postpone the wedding," Lucas told the people around the table.

"For a year," Maya dropped in the last part, to an already speechless audience.

When they would start back for home later that evening, with Sam and the dogs along for the ride, Maya and Lucas would be left to laugh off how they had sort of predicted the outcome of the announcement, at least where their own summary of the reactions was concerned. It had gone somewhere along the lines of 'well, it could have gone worse, right?' They had been understanding, yes, how could they not? But at the same time they had been looking forward to the day, had made plans that now needed to be unmade and remade a year later… But they understood… Yeah…

There was so much to be said for going to sleep in their own bed again. As comfortable as they had been made at his grandparents' house, this was their house, and their bed, and no one would fault them missing it. Still, for all that, they both had trouble falling asleep that night. Eventually, Maya had turned around to face Lucas.

"Do you think she'll get to go back again? To be a cop again?" Maya had to ask. Lucas sighed. He'd been considering this as well, how could he not?

"Leave it up to her, and you know she will," he declared, and Maya nodded. "Except… it's not just her choice, is it?"

"No, it's not," Maya let out a breath, tracing the line of his shirt collar with her finger. "What's going to happen to her if they can't clear her, if she can't go back?"

It was going to crush her, plain and simple. She'd wanted it for the better part of her life, and she was finally doing it. And she was good. They were already noticing her, already looking to her like someone who had a bright future ahead of her on the force. To have it be taken away from her so early on… They didn't want to think of what it would mean.

"Whatever comes next, we're going to be there," Maya declared after a few moments.

"We will," Lucas agreed, smiling and brushing hair from her face.

"Maybe I'll suggest doing some more sessions in Houston with Stage Ready… Or even branching out, to one of the theaters out there…"

"Or even that," he nodded. "We'll find a way. She's never let us down, and we're not going to let her down either, not now."

"Not ever," Maya vowed, smiling up at him as he leaned in to kiss her.

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners