March 16th 2021

Chapter 75
Our Wait For Generations

Lucas was able to get hold of Marianne when she gave out what alarm she needed to give for him, to suspect that she needed a clean diaper. There were plenty of volunteers to go and handle it, but Lucas took it upon himself at once. Anyway, once he had her back, there was more chance to get her to settle down for a nap and not get too overstimulated by everything and everyone around her. In the last hour, she had been going along from one lap to another as they waited.

Whatever was going on back there, he trusted that if anything happened that was worth knowing about, Maya would find a way to let them know.

"Alright, that's better, I think? Yeah?" Lucas smiled as he finished redressing Marianne after changing her. "Looking a lot more chipper there, pumpkin. Now we're going to go back out and see if you'll go ahead and get some sleep."

Leaving the bathroom, Lucas carried the baby back toward the waiting room, only to stop as he spotted a small pack coming along, not all of them expected.

"Did I miss it?" August Matthews asked, sounding like he'd sprinted from wherever he'd gotten out of the car that brought him here.

"No, hey, you're good, relax," Lucas promised him, and the future uncle breathed, relaxing as encouraged.

It had been nearly two years since he'd graduated high school, but no one who knew and cared for him had forgotten the time when he had been walking under the burdening weight of a secret. The bullying and the threats he had suffered, bringing him to do things he so deeply regretted, had been such a dark cloud over him, made him into someone else. That was all long gone now, and the young man standing before them could have easily tried to pretend as though it never happened, but instead he kept it, in the back of his mind, as a lesson to never forget. Lucas would say he'd been made stronger, not by going through it but by getting through it. He hadn't made it there alone.

"See, I told you everything would be fine. He was fretting so much," Milena Janacek informed Lucas, topping this playful jab with a smile turned to her boyfriend. "Come on, let's go find the gift shop," she dragged him off, and they were gone.

"Hi, Marianne," Dora Cassidy stepped up with a grin directed right to her cousin's child. She matched this spoken greeting with a signed one. She'd been signing whenever interacting with her, all the better for her to pick it up early. She would spell out her name, other times simply using the sign for 'pumpkin.' Today she spelled out Annie, which made Lucas smile, thinking of his grandmother, and his grandpa Jax' note. As much as he'd wanted to start winding her down to nap, Marianne was as friendly as ever with the people she was close to, and from there it was hard not to go ahead and pass her to his cousin. So, he let Dora have her.

"I get how she ended up here," Lucas pointed to her as he looked to Sam. "You're not in school anymore, so…"

"I can take my work with me," Sam pointed out, holding up his bag. "You wrote me, I wrote her," he nodded to Dora in the same move as he got hold of his niece's hand, seeing the excitement on her face for seeing him. "She wrote Milena, who already knew, and she told Dora that Rosa was coming to get her and August, so I wrote her," he now turned to Rosa. "And she came to get me on the way to get the rest of them." Rosa punctuated this with a gracious nod.

"The more, the merrier, right?" she told him. "Except at Coleman's before Christmas," she then added, sharing a smirk and an inside joke with her former co-worker.

They migrated their little group over to join the others in the waiting area. This was not Rosa's mother's store in the holiday rush, so merry was more than appropriate. The small selection of parents and grandparents greeted the new arrivals in a very welcoming way.

"Wasn't August supposed to be with you?" Topanga asked her daughter's bandmate.

"He was… is," Rosa nodded. "Went to the gift shop with Milena," she explained. "They spent the whole ride out here going on about whether to get the biggest thing they had, or just something small and baby-appropriate, maybe something in May colors, or with an N on it…" she rattled off, giving the impression that the conversation had been frantic and bordering on getting on her nerves. Even as she said this, of course, she already had her offering, which she'd bought ahead and kept in her car whenever she left the house over the last two weeks 'just in case.' She was eager to meet baby Nicky, but she would not suffer the gift shop frenzy.

When August and Milena returned, it seemed as though they'd struck a compromise. The bear he carried in his arms would definitely be bigger than his nephew at birth… or for the first two or three years of his life. He looked very proud of it, and that was what mattered. The way his parents looked at him, Lucas felt as though they were being confronted with yet another reminder that their children were growing up. It was already one thing that their firstborn was at this moment a short time away from becoming a mother, but then here was their second, their last for all the years until Hunter had surprised them all. The one who'd been their little Auggie was now their tall August, aged twenty. Even their surprise baby number three was just a few short months away from starting the first grade. Time just never stopped, and Lucas could never fault them for feeling it, when here he stood with his baby girl already half a year old.

Lunch time was not so far off, and in no time, they were all having to consider how they'd go about it. No one wanted to leave in case someone came along with news about Riley or the baby. The solution then became to go ahead and call it in. Specifically, Lucas called Nando's. His intention was never to earn them all a free meal, but then as soon as he mentioned that they were at the hospital, waiting on the birth of Dylan and Riley's son, Fernando Garcia would not hear a single word about a bill. The food was on its way, on the house and with many congratulations.

When it arrived, they learned that congratulations, in Asher's uncle's book, meant food, balloons, and flowers, the latter two courtesy of the flower shop down the street from the diner.

"Farkle just wrote to say they are all boarding in Philly now," Lucas told Mr. and Mrs. Matthews when the message came. They'd just finished eating by then, and Sam was going around, picking up everyone's empty things for the trash or recycling bins. As hoped, Marianne was napping, though she did so in Dora's arms instead of her father's. Lucas passed his phone to his former teacher so he could read the entire rundown. Even as he did so, he looked up to find Mr. and Mrs. Orlando coming along. Not far behind was Dylan's brother, Kyle.

"We made it?" Mr. Orlando asked, the trio walking into the waiting room.

"You made it," Lucas promised as he moved to stand. The man let out a breath of relief.

"I was at work, I forgot my phone in my office," he recounted, his tone seeming to say, 'I can't believe I did that, what if I'd missed it?'

"Won't be the last time," his wife told him with a sympathetic laugh. "I figured that might have happened today, so it's a good thing Kyle was able to go and get you. You and Dylan, cut from the same cloth sometimes, I swear."

Here was Dylan's mother. Not the one who'd birthed him, no, but the one who'd been there for him, who'd come along after the first Mrs. Orlando had left and who had come to occupy a place so valued by both Dylan and Kyle, who could have been so hard a sell, being the elder of the two boys. But in the end, he had made an easy attachment to his father's new wife which showed to this day.

To see her now, Lucas couldn't help but think of the one who'd left. Jocelyn Orlando… Jo Munroe… She was about to be a grandmother today, one way or another, and she didn't even know it. Or maybe she did. He couldn't say for certain what she did or didn't know, seeing as they'd had no idea that she was even in Austin all this time, not until last year. If she did know, he couldn't say whether that made it better or worse.

Sometimes he hated that he knew. He hated that he had to know and hold his tongue. He'd do it, of course, out of respect for his friend and the whole situation at large, the unwitting participants out there. But at the same time, it only made it more frustrating, didn't it? He thought about Dylan, back in that room with Riley and Maya. He was so happy today, almost more than one person could bear. Lucas knew him too much to think there wouldn't be one time, or more than one time today, when he would think about his mother, his birth mother, and how she wasn't here with the rest of them for the birth of his son. The day they'd told him about where she was, about his half-siblings… Lucas had never seen him so broken up. Dylan Orlando was possibly the happiest person he knew, but he was so vulnerable to this one thing in his life, reaching out to him from far in the past.

He guessed it was inevitable that they would have that on their mind today, too, if they knew about it all. He hadn't gotten to talk to Maya all that long before she ended up with Riley, but he figured she would think about it at some point or another, too. That was not surprising. But then, because of this notion of his being unable to ignore it, he discovered something today. It was subtle, or it would have been to anyone who didn't know her, but as they all sat together, Lucas caught a glimpse of his mother and he knew… She knew. She knew that Jo, Jocelyn, whatever they'd call her, was in Austin and had been here all along.

They'd been friends long ago, hadn't they? How long had she known? Had she always known? What did she know? There was too much to consider, and this was neither the time nor the place for this conversation. He had to believe that there was a good reason for her to hold her tongue, but at the same time… Not today… This isn't the time. This is a good day.

She was looking back at him now, maybe catching on to whatever expression would have been on his face. He knew her so well, but she knew him better. Their eyes met, and he caught the realization flashing in her mind. He knew. How did he know? What did he know? He shook his head at her. Not now, not here. She squared her shoulders, breathed. He was right, she knew. This would be a conversation for another time, but without a doubt it would be a conversation. With how the knowledge he already had left him so upset, he dreaded to think what this next part would do. And what about Dylan in all this?

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners