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

March 4th 2021

Chapter 63
Our Work to Enjoy

Every time he drove through the arch now, Lucas could not help but think of them. Simon and Marianne. For as long as he could remember, it had always been to him his grandmother's place. There was no blame to it, not toward him or anyone. His grandfather was in great part as much a stranger to his mother as he was to him, his grandfather… His grandfather was Jax, for what time he'd had with him. He remembered this man, remembered him with his grandmother. Little as he'd been, he'd known and understood how deeply they loved one another. Now, looking back on it, he wished he'd known more about their story. He knew parts of it, of course, from his own experience and his mother's, but the ones he wondered about, he didn't have. All he could do was infer them from what he knew. The image it presented him was that of a woman who'd suffered such a terrible and tragic loss and the man who'd come and brought happiness, and life, and love to see her rise again.

For all the love he bore for Marianne Sullivan's second husband, the last few weeks had put him so deeply in touch with the first that he'd been pulled from the depths of the unknown into reality. After the articles had been found, it had been impossible for him not to try and ask around. He brought it up with Juliet, and she had this look to her face when he did, as though she remembered exactly when and how she'd first heard about that day. She'd found pictures before, of the stables as they had once been, including the one which had been destroyed, never to be salvaged. She'd asked his grandmother, and she'd been told the tale. She brought Lucas to show him the place where it once stood, and it was to him like a realization of old days. When he'd been little, when he would play around here with his friends, he never liked it there, he felt… haunted, a shiver under the skin, every time. The others would laugh at him for it, but he couldn't explain it. There had been no way for him to know any of this, but now he did.

Donna Devereaux had been the greatest source for him to call upon, the old woman having been his grandmother's friend long before Sullivan Stables had even existed.

"Oh, they were really something," she told him, almost holding her hands to her heart with a sigh, and all Lucas could think was that the great hopeless romantic would likely get along very well with Sophie and Riley. "You know, we all grew up together, from school children," Donna laughed, which in turn made him consider those three, and who knew who else, as he might his own group of friends. "You know when they say how a boy will pull a girl's pigtails, but really it's that he likes her? That was Simon, and he really did," she chuckled, and Lucas smiled. "They were Sullivan, both of them, and he'd always be behind her in class, easy prey," she mimed pulling an imaginary pigtail. "Your grandmother didn't care for any of that, oh, no. She'd put him in his place, all small and stern. That only made him like her more."

"I know the type," Lucas nodded. He'd heard plenty of stories of his grandmother out of Donna before, but these ones were new, and he relished each one. "When did they…"

"Not for a long time, no. Your grandfather went to a different school than us after elementary. We lost touch with him for nearly a decade after that. And when that happened, well... He'd grown too much the gentleman to go for those kinds of antics, but he'd learned some better ways. They ran into one another, at an auction, she was there with her folks, he was there with his... They barely said hello, and he asked if she might go out with him. Your gran, she never would tell me what did it, if it was the memory of him back in the day or if it was the young man she saw then. If you ask me, it was all of that but also that her father was trying to set her up with one of his pals' sons, a real lunkhead, and she just wanted to shake that idea loose."

Donna laughed here, and Lucas started just as she did, thinking of his grandmother.

"All worked out very well for everyone here, naturally. There are plenty of people out there who will move heaven and earth to find The One, and then there are others who will find one another like heaven and earth were the ones moving them on the right path."

"Yeah..." Lucas felt the ghost touch of a hand gripped at his collar.

"Your gran wanted that for your mom, your uncle, and oh did she ever want it for you," the old woman tapped his arm. He smiled and nodded, even as the notion came to him...

"The rings she gave me, before she died..." he started to ask, and Donna just nodded.

"Simon's. I was there with her, I guess it must have been that day. I was visiting, and she asked me to give them to her. I think she wanted to wear them one last time." It had never occurred to him back then, but he had been eleven, hadn't he? They weren't the ones he'd seen on her hand so many times, those would have been from Jax...

"Where did..."

"She gave those to Michael. If he ever had children, she wanted him to have his daddy's rings to pass on if he wanted to."

Lucas was so happy to be able to share this story with Maya when he saw her next, to hold her hand and look at the rings and know their history. She was just as inspired for the notion, he could see it in her face, and in the way she interacted with the rings on her finger after this.

The whole process of getting the archive together had been twisting and weaving through her creative's mind, and he had been seeing the results over the weeks. It filled him with this feeling so connected to all that she did. There were many portraits, of Marianne the first, of Simon and of Jax, of Melinda and Michael, of him... all through the years of the Sullivan Stables. There were even songs, and they were shaping up like those rare gems, the ones that felt instantly larger than life. He didn't know what would become of them, if she would record them, if they would become part of the TXNY songbook, or be passed along to Ree, or the Marvelers, or some other artists, or if they would remain hers and his, like their anniversary songs... But he would hear her hum them, sing them almost subconsciously as she worked, and he felt the notes pulling at his heart and conjuring shining images of Simon and Marianne Sullivan.

"I think... we're done?" Maya stated as she came down from the second floor, two nights before the official opening of the archive. Lucas turned to her, pausing in his slow trek along the various displays on the ground floor. Marianne had just awakened in his arms, though she remained at peace, her little hand pressed into his neck.

"Looks that way, yeah," Lucas looked around.

"And with a whole day to spare," Maya dramatically stated, taking a bow.

"You did say we'd make it," he smirked as she came almost sauntering over to him. "So, what are we going to do with this extra day?"

"Well, this is just my idea now, but not coming out here at all sounds like a reasonable plan. We have spent a whole lot of this last month here, haven't we? We need to take a breath and step back before coming again for the big opening. Otherwise, we'll get all nitpicky hands," she gestured.

"Fair point," Lucas easily agreed. "Let's get out of here then."

Waking up the next morning, Lucas didn't know that he had ever felt as deeply in tune with his wife's 'project brain' as he did now. After having spent the last few weeks so deeply focused on the archive, on not only getting it ready but more than anything on digging into the history of the ranch and the people who had created it and helped it grow, now... He wasn't ready to jump back out of that headspace so easily. He felt restless.

"Oh, I know that look," Maya stated, and he turned his head to realize she was awake and facing toward him.

"What's the cure?" he smiled, more so as he watched her ponder.

"I know a few..." she trailed on as she got out of bed and walked to the crib, finding their daughter awake and reaching up. "Right now, I think we'll have to go with... hey there, Pumpkin," she kissed Marianne's little face before bringing her over to the bed. "Do your thing," she whispered and passed her into Lucas' arms.

"I like the way you think," he was all smiles now, focused on the baby girl.

"I do what I can," she humbly declared.

This became the heart of his day off. He spent it with her, with her and Maya. Some of it was just being at home, the regular chores, and then there were errands to run, groceries and the likes. Then it was just playing around, and simply enjoying this time in her young life. Maybe it was this constant reminder of his grandparents, and his mother, and how little of her life she'd gotten to spend with her father before he was taken from her. He had always wanted to be a strong presence in his daughter's life, but now...

They had been announcing the opening of the Simon Sullivan Archives about as long as they had been working to prepare it. It felt sort of dangerous, when there was no substantial proof beyond their own confidence that they would be ready on time. There was no backing out, and thankfully they were now on this side of things. They were ready, they would open as they said they would.

"Are you good? Watch your step," Lucas instructed his mother as he and his father guided her along.

She'd had her eyes closed since they had been coming up on the turn in the road that would bring the building into view. There was a smaller road which would lead to the archive without having to pass through the rest of the ranch, which would be ideal for visitors coming strictly for that purpose. It wasn't as though they expected to be overrun with those on the day to day, but if it got in any way busy, they didn't see that added foot traffic as a logical choice. With Melinda however, the long way around felt like the thing to do, and so here they were.

After the day when she'd learned how her father had died, she hadn't been back to help with the set up as she'd done beforehand. She felt bad about it, much as Lucas, Maya, Juliet, Thomas, Michael, and anyone else involved would tell her not to. Much as she wanted to be helping, she had been shaken by what she'd learned, for the information itself, for the man who had first been her father, and for her mother, for how she had been comfortable in her ignorance so much so that she'd allowed her mother to suffer through those memories on her own. She could never make that up to her, could she?

All she could promise was that she would be there, the day they opened the doors, and that was today. Here she was.

"I know the way," Melinda promised her son with a subdued smile.

Her natural exuberance had been spotty in recent days, too, like there was just too much going through her head at the moment for her to properly engage herself. It had been worrying Lucas and Maya both, naturally, though Thomas would promise the pair of them that he was looking after her, and that she was doing a lot better than they might be led to believe. They had to trust this, that he would know better than just about anyone. Michael wasn't overly worried about his sister either, so they let things be. They would check in with her every day, tell her how things were progressing, just as she'd asked, and that was as good as asking 'how are you?'

"Humor us then," Thomas smiled as they continued onward.

"Yes, dear," Melinda tipped her head blindly toward him.

When it had been the closed down old studio, the building hadn't exactly been falling apart, but it showed its disuse from a mile away. Standing as the archive now it looked alive again, right down to the signage out front. They hadn't told Melinda about the name yet. The idea had come after she'd stopped coming, and it felt like something they should hold on to until she was ready to return. Now it was opening day, and all they could do was hope that she didn't disapprove, though they couldn't see why she would.

"Here, this is good, stop," Lucas instructed, and his mother stopped with him. "Take your time," he told her. She just reached out and lightly tapped his arm, assuring him that she was alright. He still put his arm around her shoulders, and when she leaned to his side, it was as good as showing she'd needed that extra bit of support.

It felt to Lucas as though his mother became inhabited with the spirit of her late mother when she opened her eyes, as though Marianne Sullivan came to discover her old, unrealized idea brought to life. More than anything, it might simply have been that he noticed just now how much she was coming to look like her mother, even as he picked out those traits of her father as they became more and more familiar to him, while she read the name in front of the archive.

"You did good," she finally nodded over to him, to Maya as she stood just ahead of him with Marianne. Melinda looked at her, this precious granddaughter of hers, carrying her mother's name back into the world. She hadn't looked so like herself in days.

"Here," Maya smiled, bringing out the key from her pocket and carefully extending it beyond the reach of small grabby hands. Melinda laughed, taking the key with one hand even as the other reached to stroke the baby's cheek. "You should open it first," Maya told her mother-in-law. Melinda took a nervous breath and went to let them all into the archive.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners