February 9th 2022

Chapter 40
Our Sparks For Christmas

Maybe it was the holidays, maybe it was that they had several little children in the house now… Maybe it was just that Maya would be Maya, whether she was a teenager or a grown woman. Whatever it was, Lucas woke up on Christmas morning to barely contained laughter and the sensation of something very cold and wet trickling down his neck. It startled him, naturally, and even as his hand swiped in to see what it was, there was Maya, sitting back next to him and laughing out loud as she barely kept hold of the small bowl where she'd scooped some of the very light snowfall they'd been treated to.

"Merry Christmas, husband," she beamed at him, and he couldn't even be mad. He just smiled as she set the bowl aside and moved to lean over him. He didn't miss a beat. He caught her in his arms, and they kissed, tenderly at first and a little less so as they got lost in the embrace. Even when it had been just them and Marianne, they had adopted a mentality of enjoying their time alone when they could, and now that they had the triplets, too, well… That only became more and more of a thing, didn't it?

They got a lot further than they might have expected, enough so that when they did catch any noise from beyond their room, they needed a moment to pull themselves together. Before they'd leave their bed though, he held on to her a few seconds more, the better to smile and kiss her once more.

"Merry Christmas, wife," he echoed her earlier greeting, and she laughed. Alright, now they could go.

They had made it very clear to Marianne – under the guise of asking the Sheriff to look after Tori – that she had to wait to go downstairs until they could all go downstairs together. She kept her word, she did. She was sitting at the top of the stairs along with her little niece when her parents stepped out of their room, but she had kept her word.

"Merry Christmas, pumpkin," Lucas smirked, and now both his daughter and granddaughter left their 'post' to scramble over to him. "And Merry Christmas to you, too, sneaky," he added even as he had to brace himself for the impact of two small girls grabbing hold of one of his legs. They returned his wish and asked if it was time to go downstairs yet. "Well, we need everyone, remember?" he asked, pointing up. In the next moment, the girls were off toward the second floor to see if 'the E3' were awake. Maya had been calling them that, whenever they were all around, seeing as how the three girls' names all sort of melded into one another.

As they would hear it over breakfast later on, Ella had not been awake, but then she'd been awakened by her daughter and had not minded in the slightest. Emma had been barely awake when Marianne had barged into her room and she'd let out a slightly startled yelp, but once she'd seen who it was, she'd just been happy to see her niece. As for Eliza… Well, it was perhaps a good thing that Marianne had ended up randomly choosing the other room first. The four-year-old had found herself facing a closed door she could have sworn had been open a crack a moment before and, because she knew the rules, she'd knocked and waited. When the door did open, she was as surprised as her parents would be to find that her aunt was not alone.

"Daddy, there's a guest," she'd come down to the first floor as Lucas and Maya were carrying the triplets from the nursery. When they asked what she meant, she explained that specifically Auntie Lizard had a guest, in her room. This was indeed a surprise as, to their knowledge, the only humans in the house when they'd gone to bed the night before counted the two of them, plus five daughters, two sisters, and one granddaughter.

When exactly this additional person had materialized, it would be for Eliza to explain in time. Either way, the second floor contingent came along, with an awkward-looking Eliza at the back, escorting a tall young man with an expression on that same wavelength of 'well, this is weird, can I please disappear?'

"Hello," Maya was the first to speak, trying not to sound like her brain was in disarray. One would think that she'd get used to the notion of her siblings in relationships, whatever this one was, but then here she was, eyes darting between Eliza and this stranger and… No, it would always start like this. "I'm Maya, I'm Eliza's sister," she introduced herself, with a brow that asked 'and you are…' For a second, she assumed this was Ford, the T.A. she'd heard about.

"This is Ben," Eliza spoke, not quite managing to come off casual. Maya slowly nodded.

"Merry Christmas, Ben," she spoke the only words her brain seemed willing to offer.

"He's Jewish," Eliza spoke, sounding like her brain was at a word shortage, too.

"Merry… Sunday…" Maya course-corrected.

When the awkward silence was finally broken by crying babies and eager demands of going downstairs to see what Santa had brought, the crowded party in the first floor hallway started down toward the living room. Rather than to hope that Marianne and Tori would be able to sit still through breakfast first, they gathered around the tree to open presents. This might have been just as well, as sitting around a table just now would have only highlighted the ongoing weirdness in the air. Instead, they got to sit there and focus on seeing what everyone got, and that was really the way to go, in more ways than one.

Forever the social butterfly, Marianne was either unaware of the odd behavior of her family, or she didn't care. They had a guest in their house, a new person, and so she was very eager to learn more about him. Already, she'd latched on to the one piece of information other than his name that her aunt had revealed upstairs. She had some knowledge about Jewish people and their holiday because they'd talked about it at preschool. Showing himself to have the presence of mind to latch on to a line of conversation when it was there, Ben gladly filled Marianne in a little more, and she stood there and listened to every last word.

The unexpected guest left after breakfast. He probably would have left before that, but Maya and Lucas both insisted on his sticking around for the meal, so he stayed and ate with them. They learned that he worked at the university bookstore and was also in a few classes neighboring Eliza's, which was how the two of them had met and started to hang out. He was originally from New York, which had been a point of conversation for him and Eliza. This was the extent of what they learned, as they also had to consider the children around the table, though with how the morning had started for him, it was probably a miracle that they'd gotten that far. He'd been invited to stick around after breakfast, too, but he'd insisted that it would be better for him to leave them to their festivities.

Eliza saw him out once he'd gone up and grabbed the rest of his things. Maya watched them discreetly from just inside the kitchen, as did Emma. They watched the two of them whispering close, which they guessed to go something like an apology out of Eliza and an assurance that all was well but that he had to go from Ben. They exchanged a quick kiss and then he was gone. After the door closed, Eliza rested her forehead against the wood with a sigh which both of her sisters heard. They slowly approached as she turned and saw them there.

"I'm sorry, I should have said something…" she shook her head.

"Might have been nice to have a warning," Maya agreed. "But hey, it's done now, don't worry about it. Just out of curiosity, when did he…" she gestured, and Eliza understood what she wanted to know.

"I couldn't sleep last night, and we were texting. I told him how I was sad that we wouldn't get to see Mom and Dad and Wyatt and Maisie for Christmas this year, and then after a while I sort of asked if he wanted to come over, as a joke, or just… I didn't think he'd say yes, but he did. I-I snuck him in, and we went upstairs, talked a while, and then…" She let them finish the sentence for themselves, cheeks and ears reddening as though they couldn't already understand. After a moment of standing there, none of them talking, she let out a breath, covered her face with her hands. Her next words came out muffled and tacked on to a groan. "Shouldn't have done that… What was I thinking?"

Maya and Emma exchanged a look and stepped up together, pulling their sister into a hug. Now wasn't the time to debate whether or not what had happened between Eliza and Ben was a good thing or a bad one. They couldn't shuffle it right aside like it never happened, but right now what mattered was to make sure that they would get through the day and have the best Christmas they could have. It was the first in Austin for some, the first ever for others… For Eliza and Emma, it was the first they'd spend without their parents, and Maya knew how rough that could be, even if she'd only been two hours away, out in Houston. The best thing she knew for her sisters to do now was to focus on what they did have, the same mission they'd had all along. Make memories with Kacey, Remy, and Lucy. Give Marianne and Tori a wonderful Christmas day.

"Sound good?" Maya asked, temple to temple with Eliza. She nodded. It would be her pleasure.

In no time, the whirlwind took them over. Family started to arrive, more presents were brought along, presents that Santa had entrusted with them to bring over. The triplets started their rounds of being passed from one pair of arms to another. Marianne would run around, from one person to another, and wherever she went, Tori would be sure to be right behind her.

"You look like you're trying to clock your exit there, Huckleberry Claus," Maya came up and whispered at his ear. She grinned as she saw his own face shift into a smile. "Come on, play it cool or she'll get on to you," she tapped his arm.

"Poker face, got it," Lucas nodded, with a serious face whose sole purpose was clearly to make her laugh. It was a complete success. A few seconds later, the doorbell rang, and they looked to one another.

"Your turn or mine?" Maya asked, holding up her hand like she was about to call 'rock, paper, scissors.'

"I think this one's yours," Lucas told her and, oh, that look on his face… He knew who it was, and she needed to be the one to open the door.

"Alright…" she squinted at him before moving to answer the bell. The moment she opened the door, there were enough faces to overwhelm her, but the ones in front demanded that she focus on them first, as they shouted out…

"Merry Christmas!" With a beaming laugh, Maya bowed and put her arms around Caitlin and Harry Olsen.

"Merry Christmas!" she returned the wish with a big squeeze.

They must have coordinated this, made sure to arrive all at once, because they were all there… The Olsens, Youngs, plenty more of the family whether they were still under the Clutterbucket name or not. The first time she'd met them, at her grandparents' house in Arkansas, it had felt like stepping into a brand new world. Today, all those people she'd met back then, they were here, stepping into hers for a bit of Christmas cheer.

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners