December 25th 2021

Chapter 359
Our Children in the Ranch

The day Lucas finished his residency didn't feel the way he thought it would. It wasn't as though he'd envisioned fireworks, and he wasn't disappointed either that it had come off feeling more as though he'd clocked out of a job for the last time. But after all this time, the years he'd put in to get here... He'd finally made it. And he was fortunate. His dream job had been there all along, waiting for him on the other side. He was well aware that this didn't happen for everyone, not by a long shot, and he wanted to make sure he didn't get this opportunity in vain. The last three years, he'd just been inching along, waiting for this moment. He'd loved the work he did at the hospital, too, and he was sorry to leave it, but now... Now he had to look to the future.

So, he was here, at Sullivan Stables, officially taking over for Doctor Alvarez. He wouldn't be gone entirely, he'd still come by, whenever he could, to lend a hand, to pass on more knowledge when he could. But he would finally do what he'd needed to do since his back injury had started flaring up again. He was going to take things easy and make sure that he'd have as many good years ahead of him as he could.

There had been a small family gathering at the ranch to celebrate this passing of the torch. Of course, with it being this family, calling it small felt like they didn't know the meaning of the word. They had celebrated the old doctor's time at the ranch as much as the new one's history with the place, looking forward to all the things he would do, carrying on the memory of the woman who had inspired him, Marianne Sullivan.

If there was one thing Lucas would remember of that night, beyond the look of love and mischief from his wife, beyond the presents he received from their daughters and granddaughter, and the glowing pride of his parents and grandparents... He would remember that his Granny Emm had been with them, as though risen from the dead.

Near the end of the evening, Juliet came up on to the small stage, where TXNY - featuring Cara, Morgan, Rosa, and the Zhu sisters, Nadine and Olivia - had been playing requests throughout the day. People would be bound to start leaving soon, and before that happened, she wanted to cede the stage to someone who couldn't be with them that night, someone who had absolutely wanted to congratulate Lucas. None of them knew who she was talking about. Everyone they could think of was right here. But they brought the large screen on to the stage, and a few moments later, with the lights in the tent dimmed, the screen was taken over with a video, a recording that had to have been made, oh... twenty years ago at least.

Sitting right on the same swing they'd sat on countless times, on Juliet's porch, her old porch, was Marianne Sullivan.

It was just as well that she didn't start to speak right away, or they wouldn't have heard a word out of her, so shocked as they were by the as yet unseen images. Lucas' heart felt lodged in his throat, and a moment later he sensed Maya's hand on his. He closed his fingers around hers. She was shocked, too, but also fascinated, just as Marianne, their Marianne was. She knew who this was, and she said as much to her father, who quietly pressed his lips to her upturned forehead.

Further along the arc of the round table, they could see Melinda and Michael, looking up to these images of their late mother as though someone had rewound the clock and returned them to childhood. As much as everyone had loved her, there was no one alive, not even Lucas, who had loved her nearly as much as the two of them has done. Thomas Friar rubbed at his wife's back while Keith Reyes put his arms around his husband from behind. Their daughters had never known her, not in their lifetime, and though they had seen videos of her before, they understood just as well the power of the unseen, especially after so long.

"It's on now," they heard a quiet voice speak on the recording, one they recognized as Juliet. Marianne Sullivan blinked and smiled, straightening up in her seat.

"Sorry, I... Right there?" she pointed to the camera, took a centering breath. No matter how many times she'd been on camera over the years, she'd always talked about being nervous, needing a moment, and they saw it here. "I have to remind myself, I won't be talking to a boy now, even though that's what you are to me. Just turned ten... already, goodness me," she pressed a hand to her heart and smiled again. "But you'll be a man now, yes... The way you're going these days, you must look a whole lot like your daddy."

There was a rumble of quiet laughter, knowing how right she was about that.

"I know... I know I won't be there to see this," she went on, returning a sobriety to her audience. "I've made my peace with that, I have. But I know that, if you get the chance, you'll keep your word, the one you gave me years ago. And if you're seeing this, then you've done it. You're here," she nodded, at once so happy and also sad.

No matter how much she had supposedly made her peace with the knowledge that her days were numbered, and she wouldn't get to see her grandson to the other side of this journey, there couldn't help but be a part of her that wished it didn't have to be this way. They watched those thoughts play across her face for a moment. She looked down at her hands, turned the rings on her finger. These were the rings of her second marriage, which had since been passed on to her son, to pass on to his children, but Lucas had a feeling that she was thinking of other rings, the ones presently on a chain around Maya's neck. Was this when she'd decided to give them to him?

"Granny, look!" a boy's voice was faintly heard coming from the recording, and how they all knew who it was at once... Marianne Sullivan turned her head and smiled... that one smile that belonged to him.

"Oh, Juliet, turn the camera around. Say hello, now, Doctor Friar," she whispered the last part, a secret joke reaching across time as the viewing party laughed. When the camera swung around, there he was... Lucas Friar, all of ten years old and just barely that. He came jogging all the way to the bottom of the steps.

"Daddy?" Marianne Friar gasped, looking up at her father again.

"Yeah, that's me," he confirmed. "I remember that day now..."

"What are you doing?" little Lucas asked.

"Oh, testing something out, sweetie," the younger Juliet spoke from off camera.

"What did you want to show me?" Marianne Sullivan asked her grandson.

"I got the rope trick down, I can show you," little Lucas revealed with a big grin. He would hold to the end of the ramp and balance himself on his toes, twisting left and right. Watching this, Lucas felt Maya rest her head against his arm. He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb.

"I'll be there in a minute," Marianne Sullivan told the boy, and he let go and dashed off to go keep practicing until she came. The camera turned back to the old woman on the swing. "You may be a grown man now, but you need to keep him in your heart, too, all your life," she declared, pointing off in the distance, where his younger self had gone. "That's the secret," she quietly added. "Now..." she sighed. "That's what I wanted to say. I love you, my sweet boy, and I will be proud of you, no matter if you see this video or not. Wherever I go when I leave here, I will be with you, I will. I'll be with you, with your mama, with your uncle... Congratulations," she pressed a kiss to her fingertips, sent it along toward the camera... and that was it. The screen turned black, and the lights came on again...

He only became aware of the tears on his face when Marianne, his Marianne, reached up her small hands and wiped them away with her fingers.

They had that video now, and he'd watched it again a few times. It would never hit the same way it did that first night. He would take that with him, all the days of his life.

And now he was here again, full time as he had been the year Marianne was born. It felt like the perfect book end. There he'd been, awaiting one daughter, and here he was, awaiting three more.

He was jumping right in, both feet together. They still had Katy's series filming, and on top of that, they had year two of their summer 'camp' in progress. The kids had been with them for a week already, and just like the year before it brought an air of transformation into the ranch. They were all thriving on it, the staff, the visitors, the campers, and the horses, too. It was like when they had the Grand: so many more of them were on the property and everyone was happy to have them around.

Last year had been all about testing the waters, seeing if they could make this work and figuring out what they needed to do in order to make it the best that they could. They'd had four overnight campers, with Anton Day as an unofficial camper, as he was not sleeping at the house with the others. Both Juliet and Lucas had been very satisfied with how it had all turned out, so after the teens and their horses had left and returned home, the matter that needed to be addressed was just… What's our next step?

This year, they had gone from four campers split two by two in a couple of rooms up to twelve campers, in trios, across four rooms. It wasn't until they figured out exactly who they'd have on their hands this year that they figured out how they would get them all settled in. Their campers the previous year all ranged from age fifteen to seventeen. This year, their youngest was twelve and their eldest was eighteen. That eighteen-year-old was Kabir Khatri, one of their campers from last year. The others were coming back, too. Kiana Burley, Catherine Endecott, and Scout Anderson, they would all be here, one year older and just as eager to spend their summer at Sullivan Stables.

They were all returnees, they would know how things worked out here, they could help the newbies… So why not use that to their advantage? They would essentially be their camp counselors, each of them seeing to their room and to their two younger roommates. Kabir had a pair of sixteen-year-olds, Mike and Juan. Scout, himself sixteen, was matched to fourteen-year-old TK and thirteen-year-old Shane. Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Catherine had Dina and Ana, aged sixteen and fifteen, while sixteen-year-old Kiana had Joanie and Tess, aged thirteen and twelve. Maya had suggested they might have different colors assigned to each room, have some t-shirts made…

"It's going to turn into Hogwarts houses, isn't it?" Lucas had given her a look.

"Without the very specific personality requirements," she'd shrugged.

They didn't exactly follow that model, but the shirts had been made, in lime, orange, purple, and light blue. They could be spotted easily, looking around the ranch. Kiana had taken it one step further. They were a very skilled crafter, as it turned out, and they got hold of some fabric in the same tones, the better to create bandanas that they could all use in whatever way they wanted, all except for one, which they had each hung outside where their horses were settled. When they'd be riding, the bandanas would be tied to their saddles; they were part of the 'teams,' too.

It had really been so good to see them return, to find how much they'd all grown, evolved… They'd all been astounded to learn that he'd gone and gotten a grown daughter, and a granddaughter, and that he was now about to become a father three times over again, in the time since they'd all been here. They'd met Ella before, though at the time they'd known her as Summer, and they had met Maya and Marianne, too, and they all looked forward to seeing them again. They would have hoped to see Anton again, but he and his brothers and their parents had decided to spend a great part of the summer travelling together. It would be an exercise, not to fix them but to allow them to exist as a family again, the way they used to do… without feeling guilty whenever they thought of Lambert. It would be left to be seen whether they succeeded or not.

Anton may not have been there, but his summer friends had plenty to keep their hands busy with their assigned campers. The eight first-timers had come from near and far, just about all around the country and one of them from Canada, too. Their lives back home were all different for that, but the point where they all converged, naturally, was their love for horses. It was kind of wonderful to see them all together, bonding… There was not one among them who was rude, or angry, or volatile in any way. They would all have a great summer together at Sullivan Stables before returning to their respective cities to start off whatever school year was next for them.

"Are we going to go camping again?" Scout asked Lucas when he arrived that morning. He had the light blue shirt, like his roommates, and all Lucas could think about was how Maya had reacted when he'd told her about the colors he'd picked. You came this close to turtle colors, you know that, right?

"I've been thinking about it," Lucas explained. "It's just I keep having this image in my head like we'll be out there, and Maya will go into early labor… She shouldn't, if all goes well, but…" He had to pause, breathe… resist the urge to knock on wood.

"Oh…" Scout blinked, understanding. "Well, we don't have to go all the way out there, right? We could set up some tents somewhere out on that side of the property," he suggested, pointing in the direction of the wide fields, the site of Nellie and Bobby's tussle… not too far off from where Nellie and Bobby, again, had found the injured deer.

"That could definitely be arranged. Or…"

Was he being overly-cautious-Dad-man? Maybe, a little, but then here they were, they had the campfire site right here, and not too far off that way there was the lake where they could swim, and they had space to set up the tents, too. The fact that they were within walking and visual distance from the house, well, that just meant that they had access to an actual bathroom and extra supplies if they needed them. That might have been stepping a bit out of the bounds of 'camping,' but hey… desperate times, right?

"Everyone all set up out there?" Lucas asked as he looked up from the fire he was getting started and found several of the campers coming over to join him. They'd had to find a few more logs for everyone to have a seat, but they'd worked it out.

"Mostly," Kiana replied.

"Are you missing something?"

"No, that's not it," they explained, trying to indicate the girl right behind them as discreetly as possible. Lucas tipped sideways until he could see her.

"Hey, Tess, are you okay?" Their youngest camper looked up at him. She looked… spooked and embarrassed to be so. "What's going on?"

Kiana looked at Catherine, who walked over to him and leaned to whisper to his ear. There's thirteen of us. Lucas looked at her after she pulled back. She could only shrug. What can you do? He understood that at least. Even if he didn't believe that there was any power in the number, his camper did, and he wasn't about to ridicule her for it. But they had to do something and do it quick, or else she would never have a good camping experience. They weren't about to let that happen.

"Hey, come here, I need to ask you something," he motioned for Tess to approach him. She came, slowly. He asked his question, she answered, and he smiled. "Be right back, okay?" he told her before making his way over to the house.

"Wow, that early, huh?" Maya greeted him from her seat on the couch. Charles Hart sat in the recliner, and he had Marianne sitting in his lap, looking about a breath away from complete sleep. Meanwhile, Artie was on the couch with Maya, nuzzled up to her belly while she scratched at his ears.

"We had a number emergency," Lucas held up his hands in surrender.

"A… what?" Maya blinked.

"Twelve campers plus me…" he tried to explain Tess' issue.

"Ah. Got it. So, what's the fix?"

"I just need to grab a few friends," he assured her, taking a moment to kiss her good night while he was here, carefully doing the same with the Hucklebucket and passing a nod to Charles.

A minute later, he was making his way back to the campfire site, playing 'follow the leader' with Honey Bee, Flowers, Owl, Shepherd, and Sneak. The little pitties had come a long way since their days at the hospital, truly. Some of them still had some issues, but they were just the kind that they'd have their whole lives, and to look at them all trotting along with him, no one could say that any of those pups were troubled by the fact. When the campers saw him approach and caught sight of them running along, they all brightened the way most people would when confronted by a pack of small dogs.

"You guys might want to come and grab them. I don't think they'll go too close to the fire, but better not take any chances, yeah? Don't worry, they're not shy around strangers."

Now they were eighteen around the fire, human and dog alike. Scout had Honey Bee, Juan had Flowers, Kiana had Sneak, Joanie had Shepherd, and their youngest, Tess, had Owl. Lucas ended up telling the kids about how he'd come to have the quintet living at the house when they already had Crowley, Jax, Artie, and Squeak. That story involved the beginning, which was rough, with their initial state, and the siblings they had lost, but then it came to the present time, too, where they were all thriving enough that most people wouldn't even know about that early part of their lives. They were good, all of them, and that was the best outcome they could hope for.

"We kept them this long so they could have that chance, but we're going to need to look about finding them homes soon. Most of them…" he looked to Honey Bee. There was that feeling, wasn't there? Like you would just know, when it was meant to be your dog. He felt it, Maya felt it, Marianne, too…

"Mr. Friar?" Tess trailed after him, later on, as the other campers started to head for their tents and he saw to putting out the campfire properly.

"Yes, Miss Giannelli," he replied with a smile, seeing she still carried Owl with her.

"You said… They need homes, so, I was wondering… I-if my Mom and Dad say it's okay…" He'd practically known the question would come as soon as she'd even picked up the dog at all, and now, to look at them together, there was no doubt. She just belonged with her. Hopefully, her family would feel the same way.

"It's late now, but if you want, we can put in a call to them tomorrow. I'll explain the whole thing, and we'll go from there, okay?"

"Okay," Tess smiled, no sign on her that she'd been frightened earlier. "Thanks."

"Sure," Lucas nodded to her. He watched her go as she returned to her tent. She put the dog back on the ground, and Owl eagerly followed her. As far as she was concerned, that was her person. "Really, really hope they say yes…" Lucas spoke under his breath. He really didn't want to think that he might have set the girl up for disappointment.

It really couldn't come as any surprise, the next afternoon, when he set out to make one call and ended up making four.

They woke up, gathered for breakfast, and after going for a swim in the lake nearer to lunch time, they gathered again for this next meal. It ended up leading to a discussion of the first time they all remembered riding a horse. Some of the stories were sweet, others funny whether intentionally or not… After lunch, they set up something of an obstacle course for the dogs, which turned into a very engaging event for all involved.

Lucas took this as his time to get in touch with Tess' parents. He told them about the previous night – they were familiar with their daughter's superstitions, which she'd apparently picked up from her grandfather – and about little Owl. Would they be open and able to take her on? Yes, yes, they would. Lucas let Tess know, and they might have heard her cheer all the way back home.

Once this had happened, it took no time before Joanie made her pitch for adopting Shepherd. So, Lucas called her parents, who also agreed. Then it was Kiana with Sneak, and then Juan with Flowers. Within an hour, four of the pups were set, which meant that they'd be leaving Austin at camp's end. He'd have to prepare Marianne…

"You're not going to take her, are you?" Lucas tried not to sound too weird about it when he turned to see that Scout had Honey Bee again.

"No," he smiled. "Not that I wouldn't like to, but I'm pretty sure this is where she belongs, not in Napa with me." Almost to prove his point, Honey Bee came walking back up to Lucas. She stood up on her hind legs, her front paws on him like she was trying to come up. He crouched and picked her up. Yeah, that was what she was after.

"I think we can deal with five dogs, huh?" Lucas asked her. She barked. "Yeah, but we really need to stop after that. Fosters, sure, maybe not for a little while, but then that's it, okay? Five dogs, and six humans, nine soon…" he shook his head. Honey Bee kept staring at him, tongue lolling. "Why do I think that this is your version of Maya's 'it's cute that you think you mean it' face? I know you were named for her, but come on," he smiled.

The camping trip came to an end, with the group seeing to 'cleaning up the site' before they could head back to Sullivan Stables. The kids looked kind of sad at the thought of leaving the dogs behind, but then they were better off staying here for now. They would be welcome to drop on by whenever they liked while they were still in Austin. For his part, Lucas was already looking forward to seeing what next summer's camp might look like. More kids? Same kids? Camping… definitely camping, right here.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners