March 12th 2020

Chapter 72
Their Day of Packing

"Okay, wait, what about this one?" Maya came walking back into her brother's room after having replaced her previous choice of a dress with another.

Just as she'd made her turn into the doorway and seen into his room, just as her eyes had still needed to process the image of her brother and his girlfriend sitting on the edge of his bed, kissing, Sam and Cecilia had immediately bolted apart. Cecilia tried not to laugh, while Sam looked mortified. Innocent as it had all been, it was the first time Maya had actually witnessed her brother kissing… well, anyone. It was… It was what it was, and she knew that she could go on and on about how she trusted the two of them to make the right choices, but if she treated this moment as something more than what it was, something she herself had done countless times with Lucas when they'd been their age, then what would have been the point?

"Well?" she finally spoke. "The dress?" After the couple had stared back at her for a few silent seconds, she made a show of turning around so they could get the full effect.

"I-It's nice," Sam managed to speak, though his voice came out in a squeak, which made Cecilia work overtime to stifle a laugh. "Didn't… Didn't you already pick one, what about… what about the one you just had on before?"

"Also nice, but I can't help it if I like having options. Just like you can't help… You know," she gestured to the two of them. After a beat, Sam scooted a few inches further away from Cecilia.

"I kind of liked the other one better," Cecilia declared.

"You think so?" Maya turned to her now. "I was kind of thinking that, too, but then this one does feel a bit more… laid back, simple wedding."

"You could… You could bring both," Sam suggested, still not entirely free of his embarrassment.

"Yeah, you can decide on the day, or you can put one for the ceremony and one for the party," Cecilia added.

"Yeah, that might be best. I know we wanted to pack light, but what's one more dress, right? Okay, well what about you, are you all set?" Maya asked Sam.

"Almost," he nodded. All three of them turned their heads to look upon his suitcase, lying open on the ground, partially filled with clothes and other belongings, partially filled with a sleeping puppy. "He climbed in when I wasn't looking, I can't just move him, look how comfy he is," he indicated Archer. "We're not leaving until tomorrow morning, I've got time."

"I'll help him finish," Cecilia promised. Her own suitcase was downstairs at the moment, next to the couch where she would sleep that night.

"Alright," Maya nodded, keeping her brother's gaze all the while. "I'll go pack this one up with the rest then," she told them, backing toward the door. "I'm watching you," she signed to Sam, who remained pink in the face.

Even as she was walking back up the hall, smirking to herself as she reached to undo her dress, Maya heard the door open downstairs, heard Trix and Lou barking their telltale happy barks… Lucas was back. Redoing up the back of the dress, Maya went climbing down the stairs to meet him.

"Hey, how'd it go?" she asked.

"Sophie got one look at that mega box of GiGi's cookies you made her and eyes went this big," Lucas informed her, miming for emphasis.

"Did you tell her to pace herself?"

"Nope," he shook his head.

"Good," she grinned, stretching up to kiss him as he locked his arms around her waist.

"Hey, you look beautiful," he declared, and she gave an innocent shrug.

"I was having uncertainties about what to wear on Sunday. I was convinced to bring both."

"I like both. Both is good," Lucas nodded.

"So, aside from treats? How's she doing?"

"Stressing a bit about going in for her check-up on Monday," he reported. "Her arm's still bugging her and so long as that's going she can't get around by herself," he went on to explain when Maya's face had gone into 'why is she stressing, what's wrong?' mode.

"Oh, right…" she frowned.

"Anyway, we spent the afternoon talking about summer camp, when we were counselors," Lucas went on as they climbed up the stairs toward their room. "Somehow some of the kids heard that she'd been hurt and they sent her letters. She couldn't stop smiling."

"Yeah, somehow," Maya turned to look at him as they reached the top of the stairs. "Looking all innocent there, but I don't believe you, Friar," she smiled. "Couldn't possibly be another of their counselors who, knowing how to reach them and how much it would mean to our young officer, decided to set things in motion, could it?"

"Might be possible," he shrugged.

"Right… Unzip me, please?" she pointed over her shoulder. He happily obliged. "Got your suitcase down, too, mine's nearly done."

As Maya went about changing out of her dress and adding it to her luggage, Lucas got started with his own packing. Much as he'd had a long day, with class this morning and a cancellation allowing him to take Rosa's Sophie shift for her, right now he wasn't even a little bit tired. He would look to his fiancée, and he would see how excited she was for the upcoming weekend, and he wouldn't know how to be anything but happy and awake.

Not quite forty-eight hours from now, Abigail and James would be getting married, in Tucson. The four of them, Sam, Cecilia, Maya, and himself, were leaving for the airport bright and early the next morning, hence the mini sleepover for Sam's plus one.

"By the way, had my first experience of watching one of my siblings… making out…" she made a face like she was just on the edge of queasy, which was something of an exaggeration, but still expressed some of the shock it had delivered.

"Wow…" Lucas had to laugh.

"Hey, I mean, it's not fair, most of the other ones are really little, and won't be getting up to any of that for years, probably, by which time I could… possibly… get used to the idea, but then there's him over there," she pointed to the wall in the general direction of Sam's room.

"He's in there with her now?" Lucas asked, bordering on dad face.

"Yeah," Maya waved it off. "And, fine, it wasn't really 'making out,' looked very chaste for the whole second of it I got to see before they jumped apart like their lives depended on it. Still, that was… that was an experience," she scratched at the back of her neck. "Don't know what it'll be like when it's one of the ones I've known from newborns, but even him, I look at him sometimes, and I remember how he was the first time I met him and he was only ten years old. Now he's sixteen, and he's in college, and he shaves, and he can drive, and he's… kissing…" she shuddered just a bit.

"Hey, come here," he held out his hands toward her and she moved to join him. She'd figured this to be a prelude for him to give her the old Huckleberry boyfriend move, reassuring her over this grievance toward her kid brother growing up. Instead, he leaned in to whisper something at her ear and she sprang back at once.

"No, no, no, ew!" she protested, jamming her hands against her ears and squeezing her eyes shut as though that would expel the words and the images they brought along. "Take it back!" she released one ear, just so she could smack his arm. The sound of his laughing made her open her eyes now, the better give him a few more. "Did you really? No, no, I don't want to know, I don't want to know, ah!" she whirled away from him. He just laughed harder. "You realize of course, now I'm going to have to retaliate. You think I'm scarred for life, buddy, you have no idea what's coming for you." She turned back when his laughter cut short. Oh, he looked scared now. "Yeah, that's right. You played with fire, you're about to get burned."

"What… What are you going to do… exactly?" he asked, his face lifting into a smile that felt more like 'see, you like me, you love me, don't do whatever you're thinking of doing, I'm sorry' than earnest.

"Oh, I'm not going to tell you," she was smiling now. "You're just going to have to lie in wait, not knowing... I can still picture it…" she cringed, getting back to her packing.

After an evening that felt oddly quiet, with some people being unable to look other people in the eye, they'd gone off to bed, ahead of their early wake-up call in the morning.

When Maya did wake up, it only took her a moment to know, even with her back to him, that Lucas was awake already.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you woke up extra early to make sure I wouldn't get the chance to do anything to pay you back for what you said you saw last night."

"I don't know what you're talking about, I'm just excited to get on the plane," Lucas replied, whispering as she'd done.

"Uh-huh, sure," she replied, her tone showing how little she believed this. Lucas responded by pulling her closer, kissing his way into the crook of her neck. "Oh, what's this, bribery?" she smirked.

"You know, under different circumstances, you would have said something about how if you had to suffer a mental image, then it was only fair if I did, too."

"See, you were helping your case better when you were doing that right here," she pointed to her neck with a sigh.

"Was I?" he smiled. She nodded. "Well in that case…" he leaned in, only to pause when there was a knock at the door.

"No…" Maya complained meekly. "Go away!" she called out.

"Breakfast is almost ready," Cecilia's shy voice was heard out in the hall and Maya turned to Lucas with an awkward smile.

"Sorry about that!" she called out. "Thought you were someone else. We'll be right down!" They were both very quiet for a few seconds, listening to the telltale thumping of the crutch that accompanied Cecilia's retreat toward the stairs. Once they couldn't hear it anymore, Maya turned over so she might be facing Lucas, who looked sympathetic to her unexpected blunder.

"Got a little carried away, huh?" he asked, and she buried her face in his chest so to muffle the laughter.

Breakfast was a quick affair, after which everyone went and got dressed. Their luggage was loaded into the minivan, and they left the house right on schedule. The dogs had already been picked up by Missy Sanderson, who would look after them with great pleasure, back at her house, over the following days where they would be away. She was particularly eager to look after little Archer, saying how it would remind her of when her own dog, Coraline, had been a puppy.

"It's not going to be weird, is it?" Sam asked from the backseat, and Maya and Lucas shared a quick look.

"What's not going to be weird?" Maya asked, looking as though she was attempting to button up her mouth so it wouldn't crack into a smile, or worse, giggles.

"The wedding," Sam told her. "Since you two were supposed to be getting married in a few months and now you're not doing it until later."

They hadn't even thought about it like that, although now that Sam had said it they knew it would probably be a thought growing in their heads over the next few days.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners