A/N: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available!
May 27th 2022
Chapter 147
Our Joy For Family
Maya honestly could not say who of the two of them found it the strangest, but every time they had gotten together over the last few months, it had happened without fail. They had watched their own bellies grow, but then to look at their sister's, too... And now... Now, it was only a matter of time before the first of them reached the finish line. Cara's baby boy was due any day.
"Mom is still trying to talk me out of it..." she hummed as they walked together into the movie theater.
"I'm not personally in favor of one over the other, but if it's what you want, then you should do it. This is your delivery, you decide. I've had one at home and one in the hospital, but then the hospital was miles different from the home one, and you've only got the one..."
"Thank goodness for that..." Cara breathed, making her sister laugh. "I get that she just wants to make sure everything goes okay, for me and for him, but I looked at every option and... this is mine. Mateo is good with it, too."
"I've seen the pictures," Maya nodded, and now Cara was the one to laugh. Ahead of their boy's birth, they had been showing how they were preparing, day to day, whether that was the nursery, or the set up for Cara's desired water birth. Mateo had chosen to stay 'on theme' by showing up in these pictures with his most colorful swimming trunks... and inflatable water wings... and a mask... breathing tube and all... That morning, he'd added flipper shoes.
Maya had been on leave for two weeks now, and this was to be the second of these outings that the pregnant sisters had together. It was just enough that they got to go somewhere together without over-exerting themselves, so it was all they needed. They knew they wouldn't get to do this for much longer, but Maya fully planned to carry on 'movie day' over at Cara and Mateo's after their baby was born, and then Lucas and hers, too. Cara looked forward to it, too.
Maya started to suspect that something was up somewhere about twenty minutes before the movie ended. She could feel Cara shifting in her seat, and to look at her...
"Hey..." she whispered as she touched her arm. "You okay?" she asked. The theater was only sparsely occupied, but she still managed to get shushed by someone. She ignored them.
"Yeah... yeah..." Cara insisted. Maya gave her a look. Sure? Cara motioned to say that she was okay. So, they kept going, though Maya definitely kept one eye on the movie and the other on her little sister.
Ten minutes went by, and Cara's discomfort went away, came back, went away...
"Cara..." Maya whispered again, earning another shush. Maya turned to find this great guardian of silence. "You are louder than I am. Shush," she pointed at him, and New York Maya won out.
"I'm okay," Cara insisted. "Come on, movie's almost over."
Minutes continued going by, the story was winding down, but Cara definitely wasn't. Despite any and all claims that this was nothing, Maya had seen enough today, and in the past, to have no doubt whatsoever that her nephew was on his way. Cara was looking at the screen with enough intent to show that all she wanted right now was to finish the movie without making a scene. Maya permitted her that, taking hold of her hand at the very least. I've got you, little sister...
This was not the kind of movie where anyone mindful of end credit scenes being a thing that existed would stay in their seats, so as soon as the credits started to roll, Maya stood and helped her sister up.
"You good?" she asked.
"Yeah, I... Oh..." Cara paused, looked down, then relaxed. "I thought for a second... I didn't want to make a mess for the people that clean in here..." she went on, sounding like she was saying anything and everything that went through her mind right now. It was that or face the potential - as though she didn't know to expect the unexpected - that her plans might be forced to change.
"No, you're good. Come on, my dad's waiting for us outside," Maya showed her phone before they went on walking.
"You wrote him already? When?"
"I didn't have to, he dropped us off, remember?"
"Oh, yeah," Cara chuckled, pointing between their bellies. She paused again, looking for a split second like a frightened girl. This was it. Her baby was coming... she would be a mother today.
"You'll do great, okay?" Maya squeezed her hand. "If you need reminding, I'll be right there with you."
They made it out of the theater, there to find Shawn waiting as expected. He had teamed up to watch the triplets along with Thomas Friar today, as the two of them so rarely had this chance, grandpas at the ready. Lucas' father would be back with his granddaughters right about now, while Shawn completed his service as 'chauffeur to the future mothers.' He could not have imagined how the next part of his afternoon was actually going to go. He looked up from where he'd been sitting, reading the back of one book out of the bag at his feet with a furrow to his brow like he didn't know what to make of what he found.
"Hey," he stuck the book back in the bag and stood. "Stopped by the bookstore to pick up a couple books your sisters and…" he paused when he got a look at his daughter and her sister, the latter especially. "Woah…" he blinked, pointed at Cara before looking to Maya.
"Would really help if you caught up here," Maya breathed.
"Oh! Okay, uh… Hospital?" Shawn 'caught up.'
"Yes," Maya nodded.
"No!" Cara breathed, turning to her sister. Maya remembered.
"No?" Shawn asked.
"She's supposed to do a water birth," Maya explained before looking to Cara again. "Who's supposed to do the actual delivery though, do you just call…"
"Just call Mateo, he'll know what to do," Cara explained even as they went, fast as possible, to Shawn's waiting car.
"What if they don't show up in time?" Maya had to ask.
"Just… just get me home, please…" Cara asked her, pleaded, and there was that eight-year-old little face staring back at her again, like when she'd seen her for the first time. Only she wasn't eight anymore, she was grown, and she was about to have a baby.
"We will, alright? We'll make it happen, just how you want it… Unless things take a turn, then it'll have to be how it has to be, deal?"
"Deal, deal," Cara promised with a rapid nod.
The next little while was a bit of a blur. Maya had to sympathize with her father as he drove them all to Cara's, trying to hurry but also very aware of the two expecting sisters in the back. Only one of them may have been his daughter, but the other was her sister, and for that Cara was as close to being his own as one could without actually being so. She was family, and that was what mattered.
Maya saw to calling Mateo first, and then Lucas, and then Abigail… Oh, they were flying in today, hopefully they'd make it in time. As Shawn's car pulled up to the curb outside Cara and Mateo's, Maya's phone rang, and she looked to find that it was Sam. While Shawn came around to help Cara up, Maya answered and followed them as quickly as she could.
"Hey, your mom called?" she guessed, inwardly cursing her inability to move with the haste she felt was required in the moment.
"Yeah, I'm on my way. She's still doing the water thing?"
"We just got here, looks like it," Maya told him, before giving a quick rundown of everything from the movie theater up to now. After that, they both decided that it would be better for both of them if they just got off the phone. She'd need to go and help Cara, while he had to get in his car and make his way over to the university before he could even get to them. He'd reached out to Eliza and Emma, and they had asked him to pick them up, so he would.
Mateo arrived only minutes later, as Maya and Shawn were both still trying to follow Cara's lead and figure out what they were supposed to do. Cara had been of a single mind since they'd walked in, and that was to get everything ready so she could have her baby just how she'd wanted to. Once she saw Mateo though, she let out a breath of relief. He was here… Mateo embraced her at once, and as much as he was clearly kind of freaking out on the inside – as one would – on the outside he was harnessing every bit of calm that he could, all to ensure that his wife was okay and that their son would come safely into the world.
As hasty as things had felt in the beginning, things calmed down before long. Yes, the baby was definitely coming today, but he was in no haste to make his appearance, as the next hours showed. Cara was only growing more miserable the longer it went, but if anyone even thought to suggest she change her plans, they'd find out there was such a thing as New York Cara, too, and she was just as powerful as her sister's counterpart.
The one good thing in this was that everyone who needed to be there got to arrive. Abigail and James arrived, with Wyatt and Maisie in tow, and as soon as news of their arrival reached her ears, Cara called out for her mother, so Abigail hurried over to join her. It would be her, and Maya, and of course Mateo, all right there with Cara when, at long last, there was suddenly no doubt: the baby was on his way. And as uncertain as some of those around the new parents were with regards to their chosen delivery setting, everything went about as well as it ever could… and Felix Arroyo came splashing into the world.
There could not have been a dry eye in that room as they saw him for the first time, brought to rest close in Cara's arms. For her and Mateo, it was this wonderfully unexpected first child, their honeymoon surprise. For Abigail, it was a new grandchild, and to have seen this one, born of her first daughter… And for Maya, her first nephew, her little sister's child… It was never going to be anything but mind blowing, that much she knew that day, especially when that tiny boy was placed in her arms to hold for the first time.
"Hi, Felix… Oh, look at all that hair…" she laughed through happy tears. "Did you not like the movie? Is that what brought you out today?" she joked. "Tell you what though, I'm so glad to finally meet you. And in a little while, about two months from now, your cousin will be out here, too, and you guys will get to be belly buddies on the outside. That'll be fun, won't it? You don't know what 'fun' is yet… Don't worry, you will with this bunch."
They wouldn't have dreamed of leaving Marianne out of this, having her get picked up by Pappy Tom to stay with her little sisters and not meet her new cousin, so she was picked up from preschool along with Winnie and both girls were brought over. Lauren Grayson had already picked up her daughter by the time the baby was born, so Marianne had been sitting in her father's lap when they first heard the baby cry and knew he had arrived. It was the closest Marianne had actually ever been to a birth, and Lucas had been amused through the wait, watching her as she took it all in. At this point, she was definitely aware enough to wonder what was happening with her aunt out there, what would happen with her mother soon, but as far as actually knowing it… She was not there yet.
"He's here?" she looked up to her father when they heard the cries.
"Yeah," Lucas smiled at her, bit back another laugh as she kept on looking around, amazed.
Somewhere along the way, Lucas finally got to hold baby Felix, and Marianne was right there to see him, too, when he got his turn. She was so excited to have a new cousin, and this one was a boy! For his part, even if he knew that a lot of the reasoning had to go to the fact that he was expecting a new baby of his own before very long, Lucas felt a wave of unrelenting emotion at holding the newborn.
"You had a big day today," he told Maya, as they finally got to stop and talk, in person and on their own, for the first time since he'd left for the ranch that morning. Marianne was asleep in his arms as he carried her back to where he'd parked, hand in hand with Maya.
"Yeah, but a good one," she promised him, knowing how quickly he could end up starting to wonder if it had been too much. She still had such a shine to her, bubbling over from witnessing this moment in her sister's life, from seeing her nephew be born… "Really, really good one."
"If she wakes up once we get home, she's going to want to tell the girls… and the dogs… all about how she was there when her cousin came," Lucas stated, looking to their sleeping girl. Maya chuckled. "She was fascinated."
"I'm sure she was," Maya nodded. It was kind of amusing to wonder what it was that Marianne thought happened, how it all worked. They were both sure that, if they asked her, she would have an answer, and she would share it, and it would be very like her, all the way. For tonight, they'd just try and get her to go on sleeping, undisturbed.
"Would you ever want to have one of those?" Lucas had to ask as they drove off toward home. It took Maya a moment to grasp what he was referring to.
"A water birth?" she asked, and he nodded. She paused, thought it over. "Before today, I would have probably said no, but after today… I don't know?" she admitted. "Maybe… maybe not. But I could consider it. Either way though… I'm really glad I was there for this one," she smiled at him, and he smiled back. They would close out the night, both of them, their thoughts turned to the new mother and father and their baby boy out there, spending their first hours together as a family.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
