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

April 15th 2021

Chapter 105
Our Start For Chances

Lucas had this whole thing planned for when Maya would come home that day. They were bound for the Orlando house over dinner, and no matter how that unfolded, he wanted to let her hold on to the fact that she'd gone back to work, that she'd had a great day, from what he'd heard. The best way he could do that was by presenting her with the two people she'd been waiting to get back to: him and their pumpkin. Having heard about the students and their shirts, he'd gone ahead and put Marianne in one of their baby-sized TXNY shirts. They waited for her to arrive, there in the living room, and finally she walked through the door.

"Evening, Teach," he greeted her with a smile, about half a second before he got a good look at her face and felt something like an echo of pain out of her. She saw them there, and she came over.

"Hey, baby girl…" she breathed, touching Marianne's head. Without a word, Lucas passed her along, and Maya received her with something like urgency, held her, kissed the side of her head… Marianne, for her part, just looked happy to see her mother again, which made a shaky sort of smile try and cling to Maya's face. It had trouble staying long, but it tried… it tried…

"Maya…" Lucas touched her back. She looked up at him, saw him again… maybe for the first time since she'd come home. She pressed herself into his chest and he held her and Marianne both. "Did you miss us that much?" he asked. This had to be something else, right?

She just looked at him for a few seconds, the words failing her. She'd made it home, it felt now, on something like the sheer power of her need for them, because otherwise she couldn't see how she managed to drive here.

"Khalil… and Desi… It's their mother, she…" her voice failed, but it was unnecessary at this point. Lucas understood, and he hugged her again. Part of her couldn't understand why she should be feeling it so deeply. She had never met the woman, had she? She'd never so much as spoken a word to her. But she knew her children, knew them both and cared for them both… so much… Was it their pain she felt, more than anything?

"I'll call and cancel for tonight," Lucas decided.

"Tonight?" Maya blinked. Then, she remembered. This day, it had started with another story, another family… "Oh," she closed her eyes.

"It's okay, we'll figure something else out for this, okay?" Lucas promised.

"I…" she shook her head. She had to think, but her thoughts were just a mess, too much… She had to untangle everything again. "I'll be okay," she promised, took a breath. Yes, she could be. She hadn't been able to reach her mother, she was on set, and so she'd come back here like this, but already being with Lucas and their girl, she could feel herself steadying again. "Really," she added, touching her face to feel for tears. "I want to go, I need to."

"Okay. Okay," he kissed the top of her head.

"Oh…" she had another thought.

"What?" he pulled back to look at her, absently brushing at Marianne's hair at the same time.

"I should go see my sisters," Maya shared her realization. Lucas understood what she meant here, and… yes, he could see it. It was unclear what they knew at this point, about what would be going on with their best friend, but the more they knew, there was no way they'd be left unscathed.

"How do you want to do this?" Lucas asked. She shook her head. She had no idea. "You want them all to come here? Or are we going to see your sisters and have the others meet us there?" There might have been the third option of going to one place and then the other, but… no. Once Maya got through talking with her sisters, he didn't see her leaving them so soon to go somewhere else, but then how were they going to be able to deal with Dylan, and… It was such a mess. The real answer was right there, but… Maya looked at him. She could see it, too. He let out a sigh and nodded.

When they pulled up to the curb outside the Hunter Hart house, Lucas looked at her. Are you sure? She leaned over the seat, kissed him. After getting out of the front, she opened the door into the back and held Marianne's hand, kissed it as well. All day, she'd been looking forward to being home again, to be with her and Lucas. It would have to wait. She watched them drive off toward the Orlando house without her and walked over to her parents' house.

She'd called her grandparents ahead of coming. From what they told her, the twins didn't know what was going on. They knew that Desi had left class early and she hadn't come back, but they didn't know why, which meant… She would have to tell them. They were eleven now, they understood… so much more about the world today than they might have done a few years ago, but when it came down to it… they were still this, still children… It would be the closest they got to death up to now, got to it and understood it. The thing that worried Maya the most was how their parents' current distance might press the pain nearer to them, and there'd be no stopping it. Already, she and Lucas had come to decide she would be with them until they went to bed that night, and then he'd come to drive her home.

After he'd dropped Maya off, Lucas continued on with Marianne. When they arrived at the Orlando house, she woke up from a very short nap as he pulled her from her seat. He saw the logo on the band shirt and thought about how she hadn't even gotten the chance to notice, to stop and enjoy the fact that she'd started work again. Everything had been pulled to a grinding halt, and there'd been nothing for them to do about it. He'd called ahead, told Riley that it would be just the two of them. When she'd asked about Maya, all he'd been able to tell her at the time was that something had come up, that she had to go see her sisters, and that he would explain once he arrived.

He ended up telling her, almost as soon as he walked through the door. Part of him figured, what with her being a therapist, she might be able to do something for the Russell kids. Her immediate reaction would come from a maternal place, naturally, sympathizing for the whole family, as Maya had done, as Lucas himself had done, too. He could just see the look in the back of her eyes, thinking how he didn't have to come tonight even as she was infinitely grateful that he was here anyway.

Marianne made her way into Riley's arms, and she was carried over to join her best little pal, Nicky, while Lucas went to find Dylan in the kitchen.

For having been told about this 'necessary transformation' of his, Lucas was still taken aback at the sight of his old friend, standing at the stovetop. From the back, he truly looked like another person now, and he might have been, if not for the old school hoodie he wore, with a distinctive hole patched up on the sleeve. He turned now, and Lucas couldn't hide the surprise.

"I know, I startle myself, too," Dylan admitted, running a hand over his very short hair. "When Nicky saw me the first time, he got confused and cried. But he recognizes me now, I think. He likes touching my hair," he smiled. Lucas suspected, from this, that the notion was easily the thing which helped reconcile both Dylan and Riley to the sudden change the most. "What's going on with Maya's sisters? How come she couldn't…"

"She found out that Khalil and Desi's mom passed away," Lucas told him. "She wanted to go talk with the twins, make sure they'd be okay when they heard." Dylan looked shocked. He knew those two, Desi most of all. And even if he didn't… Just to know that the seventeen and eleven-year-old siblings were going through something like this would be enough to get at his sympathetic responses. And if that wasn't enough, as of today, one of those kids was a student of his.

"I want to help, if I can, alright?" Dylan told him, and Lucas nodded. He expected no less. Dylan let out a breath. "Do you remember, when it was going to be a year since my mother left?" he asked, his eyes coming off distant, distracted into memory. If those memories were the ones that he'd just called up…

"I do," Lucas told him.

Dylan's mother was gone, but she wasn't gone. She was alive, out there somewhere. And when a year had gone by with her being gone, it had been the one time that Lucas genuinely recalled seeing his friend so overtly angry, enough to show it. At one point, he'd said… He'd said how, when people found out that his mother was gone, a lot of them assumed that she'd died, and that he would sometimes let them assume it, until he almost believed it himself. She had to be dead, that was the only reason, the only way. Why else would she leave him and his brother?

"You know, there are so many things for me to think about, now that I took the job. Obviously, I get to teach, at our old school. I get to work with Maya, and with Mr. Matthews… I get to do the thing I wanted to do. I'm also… going to be seeing the two of them… Phoebe, Taylor… But all I can really think about right now is that pretty soon, she's going to know. She's going to find out that I'm the new gym teacher. She's going to know… And I'm not sure what she's going to do when she finds out."

He could see why it would be on his mind. She wouldn't try and take her kids out of the school, would she? Would she finally tell them the truth? Would she… would she go and see Dylan? After all this time? It reminded him of a time, so many years ago, when he had accompanied Maya to the hotel where her father was staying, on his visit through Austin, so she might get to speak to him… at him. What would happen if or when Dylan saw his mother again?

"Riley says I should focus on the things I can control, and I'm trying to," he let out a breath.

"When do you start?" Lucas asked.

"Next Monday," Dylan replied. "It was easier this way. I kind of don't mind right now, gives me more time to get prepared." He might have meant this to be about how he'd structure his school year with his classes, and in part it would be. But he also needed to prepare for the moment when it would all be coming to a head for him, his mother, his siblings… all of them…

"Well, hey, I'm home for a few more days, so if you need me…"

"I know. I will," Dylan promised, as thankfully as he ever could.

Lucas stayed for dinner with the Orlandos, where he and Riley almost unintentionally teamed up to get Dylan reminiscing about good times in gym class when they had all been in high school, and it seemed to have the desired effect. It cheered him up, and it made him look forward to starting even more. These were the things he could control. They hung out some more after they'd finished eating, took some small pleasures in watching Marianne and Nicky together, until both of them were sleeping.

Maya texted him when the twins were about to go to bed, and he got their daughter back in the car and drove to pick her up so they could all head home. She sat waiting on the front steps when he pulled up, and it gave him flashbacks to when he'd pick her up from here to take her to school. This had been back when the house had been smaller, and it didn't have an upstairs. When she'd be out here already, it would be as good as telling him how eager she was to get going, and it remained so here and now. She walked up the path and got in the car with him, and he started them on to the road as soon as she was buckled in.

"How did it go?" He had a pretty good idea, but it needed to be said anyway.

"It's always… so hard to see them cry, but this one…" Maya shook her head, her gaze off in the distance. "They were so upset for a while, and then MJ saw them, and it got him started almost before he knew what had happened. It did the same for Haley…" The image of her littlest Hunter sister's tears was its own brand of troubling. "And still… After they got over the initial shock of it, do you know what they wanted to do?" She was asking, but she sounded like she knew very well he'd have the answer.

Nellie and Gracie wanted to see their best friend. They wanted to be with her and try and make her feel better. They wouldn't fix everything, no one could, but… They could do something, couldn't they? For Desi… It couldn't be, not right away. Desi and her family needed their space, and they understood this. They were really glad to have their big sister there with them that night, and they finally managed to get Katy and Shawn on the line. As soon as they heard about Khalil and Desi's mother, Shawn promised the kids he would be driving out to get to them right away. Katy would find a way, too. She'd come and see them as soon as she could, probably before that. When it came down to it, they would always come first.

"Hey…" Lucas quietly asked, later, when they'd made it home. Maya was sitting on their bed now, Marianne asleep in her arms. He spotted the moment when she finally noticed the shirt, saw the small smile on her face. She looked up at him now. "Want to talk about the rest of your day?" he asked. The start and the end had come to overpowering levels, but he didn't want the rest of it to get lost in the shuffle. He knew she'd been having a great day; he'd seen it. If they got to sit here a while and reminisce, while she got to stay and hold their Marianne… It would be the best way to bring it all to a close, to reach out and find that there were things to look forward to.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners