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


January 21st 2022

Chapter 21
Our Connection to the Future

"Oh, yeah, you're pretty sleepy, bun-bun, aren't you? Big, big yawns, ooh… That was a big one… Yeah, you just close those little eyes back down and go to sleep again, alright? Your big sister is asleep now, and if she wakes up and finds out you're awake again, she's gonna want to tell you another story. And then I'll have to tell her another one, which… Sure, I don't mind, but it is a slippery slope, let me tell you. Next thing we know, it's two hours from now, she's still not asleep, and in the morning, she'll be a cranky little pumpkin. Trust me, I've seen it…" Maya squinted. But now she smiled: Lucy had gone back to sleep. "Attagirl, bunny," she leaned to kiss her forehead before putting her back down in her crib. After looking in on her sisters and confirming that they were still sleeping, she retreated out of the nursery.

With a brief trip down the hall, confirming that Marianne was sleeping and not having deep conversations with her animal friends on the walls, she headed back down the stairs. Emma sat on the couch with a textbook, Eliza worked on her laptop, and Lucas scribbled away in his ranch journal, where he took various notes on what was happening in a given week, or events coming up, profiles for the horses… These days a lot of ink was flowing with regards to the camp projects. Maya joined the trio, with a few last diaries to look through. They all had their own things to do, but at least they were together, and that always felt better than being spread out through the house.

In the evening, all it would take would be the flare of headlights to know that someone was coming up to the house. Lucas was the first to notice it that time, and just as Maya was looking up, he was already getting up to go see who it was, which got the others to notice, too.

"Who is it?" Eliza asked. Lucas looked through the window for a few seconds before finally recognizing the driver.

"That's Stella…" he turned back to look at his wife. Maya got up now and joined him to see her former student was now out of the car and striding up to the porch. Slipping around Lucas, she went and opened the door. Stella was just about to reach for the doorbell, but she stopped short and gasped when she saw her on the other side.

"What's the matter? Are you okay?" Maya asked, touching her arm. Stella opened her mouth to speak but hesitated. She looked to Lucas, to the others out on the couch, then back to her former teacher. Her eyes suggested that she wanted to keep the nature of her visit between the two of them. After turning a look to Lucas, Maya led Stella outside and he shut the door behind them.

"I'm so sorry, I wasn't sure what else to do, you're the first person I thought…" Stella explained, bordering on a stammer that Maya hadn't heard from her in a long time.

"It's fine, hey… You can come to me with anything, anytime, alright? Now… Are you okay?" she quietly asked.

"No, yeah, I'm fine, that's not…" She turned her head back toward the car for a moment, following a thought in her mind perhaps, but it led Maya to look in the same direction. Up to now, she hadn't noticed the passenger in Stella's car. There was no light inside, but the moonlight was enough to outline someone sitting in the back. "I had to do something. It's a miracle I got her to come out here in the first place."

Maya climbed down the steps and started walking up to the car, Stella on her heels. Whatever this was, it was evidently out of the girl's depth, but she'd been of the belief that she could help, so that was what she'd do… She'd try… No matter what she might have believed she was about to find, nothing could have prepared her for the reality.

"Ava? Hey…" she spoke softly. She'd seen her only hours ago, when she'd left after the team session, and having her back here now, with Stella looking so concerned as she did…

Maya barely had the presence of mind to realize that maybe the two of them would have met tonight for a French lesson when the girl lifted her head and looked at her. Even in the moonlight, the bruising was evident, the swelling… And for all that, what guided her next move was the look in her eyes. She didn't want to be here, but she was here, and it was taking every bit of control in her not to break apart.

"Okay…" Maya breathed, coming up with a very brief but direct course of action. "Come with me? Please?" Ava's eyes turned to the house, and they said no. "Not in there, I promise."

It took about half a minute before she made a move, but finally she shifted toward the door and opened it. Maya offered her hand to help her up in case she needed it. Whether or not she did, Ava took it. Maya easily saw that she was good and steady on her feet, yes, but there was the slightest tremor in her fingers as they gripped her teacher's hand. Carefully, Maya slipped a finger under her chin and slowly lifted it, turned her face into the light.

"This way," she guided her small party away from the car and around the house. Ava seemed to be on autopilot, following, never letting go. Stella trailed along, a deep furrow of concern in her brow. "Hey," Maya caught hold of her arm for a second. "Will you go inside, get ice, couple of towels… Do you know where the first aid kit is?"

"I remember, yeah," Stella shot off toward the house. She knew where they were headed by now, so she would join them in the Hex.

By chance, she had the key on her from going out to put down a bit of a song she'd had working away at the back of her mind. She unlocked the door and turned on the lights before seeing Ava into the studio.

"Right here, sit down," Maya pointed her toward the couch, pulling her chair over and sitting across from her. Silence settled over them as she allowed Ava a few moments to warm up to her surroundings. Her eyes were taking it all in just now, the console, the booth and the instruments, everything on the walls, the few toys, the books, that they kept around for when they had any of the kids out here with them…

"This is where you…" Ava started, motioned toward the instruments.

"Yeah," Maya nodded, looking around, back to her student. Oh, she would swerve right out of the way of the topic again and again if she let her. Part of her wanted to let her do it, but it just wasn't possible, was it? "What happened tonight?" she asked her. She wouldn't look at her. "Hey," Maya caught her hands, kept hold of them as gently but meaningfully as she could. Ava didn't try and pull away, but there was definitely a desire to do so in her eyes. "Talk to me?"

There was a knock at the door and they both paused, only to find it was Stella returning. She had everything she'd been sent to retrieve, that and a tin Maya knew to contain her latest batch of GiGi cookies. Stella wouldn't have known where to find those, which meant Lucas would have given them to her. Whatever he did or didn't know of the situation, this one small act said that he knew enough.

"Here," Maya opened the tin and put it on Ava's knees. "You don't have to eat them, but if you ask me, they'll do you some good, more than any of this right now," she gestured to the rest of Stella's scavenger hunt.

For a few minutes, in the silence of the studio, Maya tended to Ava's face. The girl sat there, let her do it. She took up a cookie after the scent had finally guided her hand to do so. She took one bite, chewed, swallowed… She repeated this, worked her way through four cookies, and was picking out a fifth by the time she was given the ice to hold on to. She looked back into the tin, which was nearly empty by now.

"Please, help yourself," Maya insisted. She was hesitating now, looking as though all this care and attention was making her feel a bit too… seen, contemplated. There was no other choice though, was there? This wasn't something that Maya could ignore, not as a person, a mother, and just now a teacher… "Who did this to you?"

"I was looking for something, in the shed. It was high, I fell off the ladder," Ava told her.

"Yeah? Show me your arms. Where'd you fall, your side? Your back?" Maya asked, her tone showing plainly that she didn't believe that story for a second. By now, she was starting to be familiar with the circuits of this girl's thoughts, as much of them as she was allowed to see, and whoever she could have fooled, it would never be her. "Who hit you?" she asked, softer now. Evasive, again. "Let's try you for a change," Maya turned to Stella. She was still standing by the door.

"I was supposed to pick her up so we could go and have our lesson. We were going to the library. I was almost at her house when she called me, said she had to cancel. I guess she didn't realize I'd be on my way. I saw her walking down the street away from her house while we were still on the phone, so I pulled over and got out. When I reached her, that's when I saw…"

This bit of information was enough for Maya to finally start to understand, though she had trouble believing where this was headed, surely… Not surely. You never know… Either way, it made her feel like her armor had just slid into place, ready to go to battle. The hit was fresh, she'd left her house… Her brothers no longer lived at home, her parents were divorced, and her mother lived just outside of Boston, which only left… her father. When she put this notion into words, asked her if it was him, it was as though she had only been paying attention half the way to a movie, one eye on, one eye off, but then something had forced her to keep both eyes locked on.

"No," she shook her head. "He doesn't… do that, he never…"

"Ava…" Maya held her gaze. Ava looked back at her with the determination of someone who knew she'd be giving in the moment she looked away, except the longer she kept looking, she was keeping herself exposed to examination all the same. "He never hit you before, okay. But I think he did tonight. Did he?" The defiance was wavering.

"He didn't mean to. He didn't. I was in the way; I didn't dodge in time…" she shook her head. "He apologized, he felt bad about it, but I just… I had to take a walk."

"I met your father, last year, at parent nights, he…" Maya searched for the right words, wasn't sure what they might be. What could she possibly say? Telling her that her father didn't look at all the type would have meant nothing. But then again… Something about what she'd said was making Ava uneasy, and at first it felt like it might have been the implication of it all, but that wasn't it, no. She thought about the man she'd met, those two nights, conjured up what memory of his face she had, his voice… his face… She remembered distinctly thinking that he and Ava looked nothing alike, but it was no big deal. He could have been her stepfather, or she could have been adopted… Neither of those things were true though, and if her gut was right… "I didn't meet your father, did I?" Ava's silence said it all. "Who was it that came to the school those times, calling himself Bill Nash? Ava…"

"My uncle Owen," she confessed. "His stepbrother. They don't speak, but we still do. He's been going into school in his place ever since my mother wasn't there to do it anymore." The way she spoke about her family, her father, her mother, her uncle… It all felt like a wave, showing her feelings on each of them. The wave went high for her uncle, low for her mother, while her father… it was impossible to tell. "You're going to tell the school, aren't you? All of it…" She was trying to muster that old death glare of hers, but she was struggling to get there.

"I don't have a choice, Ava, you know I don't. But work with me here, please? I haven't spoken to them yet, and I will only ever do the best I can to help without hindering. Family is messy, I've dealt with a lot of it before. Tell me something, would your uncle let you stay at his place for a little while? Maybe a little longer?"

"Yeah, but it's fine, okay? I'm going home. We both had time to breathe, it's nothing I haven't…" She stopped for a moment. She was regaining some self-control, less shaky hands, more cookies, and the ice… "My father needs me, and I'm not leaving him."

"Your mother…" Maya started, but that only got Ava riled up.

"… left us. My dad's drinking was too… inconvenient to her. My brothers don't give a damn. Uncle Owen can't deal with him, but he gets a pass. So, there's no one left, there's just me, and him. And yeah, he's a mess. He is. But at least he stayed."

Without having everything filled in for her, Maya still felt like she understood… so much more now, right down to Ava's entire behavior, all this time… Her shield was impeccable, or it had been. She could only imagine how much energy she put into looking after her father, and when she was at school… She refused to let anyone else in. She had nothing left to give.

"Ava, I'm going to do everything I can to help you, but you have to work with me, okay? That starts with this: we're calling your uncle, and you're staying at his house tonight. If he can't take you, then you can stay here, and if you don't want that, then Stella will host you," she looked over to the girl, who nodded at once. "No school tomorrow, just rest up. We'll figure this out. Can we do that?" Ava stared at her still, breathing quietly, thinking, but she finally tipped her head in agreement. "Good, okay."

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners