A/N: The first deleted scene is up! Look for "The World Around" :) I will see about doing more today!

March 27th 2020

Chapter 87
Their Summer in Play

"What are we going to do with you, huh?" Lucas sighed, sitting on the ground of the shelter to tend to Shadow. The dog was an absolute angel when he was with him, but when he wasn't… "Don't you want to have a home somewhere that's not here?" Lucas asked him, holding his head in his hands. Shadow kept looking at him, stepping forward after a moment to nuzzle at his face. There really was no mistaking the dog's desires, and he was really wearing down Lucas' resolve day after day. He'd been holding steady in his aim to resist the urge to bring home any and all dogs he felt a connection to, but this one was rough. "I'm telling you, your people are out there, okay?"

He knew it was normal, that Shadow wouldn't be the last case he'd take to heart and he would just have to get used to it. It did not make it any easier.

As he drove up the lane toward home that afternoon, he knew he needed to get his head back on straight. Tonight was a big night.

"Maya?" Lucas called out as he walked into the house and was immediately accosted by Trix, Lou, and Archer.

"Upstairs!" Maya called back while he was greeting the dogs with a smile. They were particularly intrigued whenever he'd come home from the shelter, the same way they'd be back in Houston, when he would work at his aunt's clinic. It was the 'other dogs!' giddiness, as they'd call it. Since he'd started at the shelter, he'd been left to wonder what they all thought, if they could smell Shadow's ever persistent presence near him.

When he climbed up the stairs and found Maya in their room, she was standing in front of the mirror hanging inside the closet door, holding her hair up one way, then letting it cascade back down and twisting it a different way…

"You're so lucky you don't have long hair," she told him without pausing in her attempts at a hairstyle.

"We're all lucky, I'd look terrible," he shrugged, making her laugh. "Too many choices?" he guessed as she sighed and let go again.

"It's a really chaotic mix to put a creative person and options together," Maya insisted.

"Sounds like it," Lucas nodded, coming to stand behind her, casually splitting her hair in two bunches and twisting them about like she was Princess Leia. She snorted, batting his hands away until he let go. "We have to leave in like twenty minutes," he reminded her.

"I know, I know," she groaned, moving to pull out her dress. Maybe it'd be easier to decide once she had the dress on.

"Nervous?" he asked as he went about changing, too.

"I don't know why, it's not like I'm the one who'll be on stage tonight."

"Sympathetic nerves then?" he amended.

"Okay, yeah, big time."

How else was she supposed to feel? Tonight was the premiere of the theater's new production, with her mother in the leading role. When they had put up the poster out front, with Katy's photo front and center, it had sent such a thrill through Maya's heart, like electricity sparking out. Shawn had insisted on taking the photos, of course, and the poster had since been framed and given a place of honor in the Hunter Hart home. The kids had gotten a kick out of it, too. The twins had wanted one in their room, too, so they did – one each. MJ missed absolutely no opportunity, whenever he'd be taken near the theater, to tell any and all who would listen that the lady in the photo was his mommy. And Haley, coming up on her second birthday before long, would often be found standing or sitting in front of the frame, staring up in awe.

The kids had been giddiness and awe. Shawn… Shawn was the proudest husband there ever was. They half expected him to go door to door and tell everyone about the play so they would want to buy tickets. He had been 'on the frontlines' of seeing Katy through, from when she'd gotten the role, and then all the preparations, the rehearsals, and the ticking clock bringing them closer and closer to the premiere. From what Lucas and Maya both had been hearing, he'd been stopping her from deciding to quit at least once a week since the beginning, and twice a week after a while. Now, it was pretty much daily.

So for all that, Lucas could more than understand why Maya herself was so nervous. It was a sort of sympathetic anxiety for her mother. When he asked her about it, she just considered it for a moment before she could think of what to say.

It had been just the two of them for so long, Lucas knew that, like he knew how acting had been such a big part of who Katy was back then, such a big part of how Maya identified her mother. She knew how big of a part it was of her mother's life back then, but it had taken a few more years' growing up, of being out here in Texas, after Katy had essentially given it up for her job at the theater… It had taken her that time to see how it was so much more than a part of her life, it was a part of her. And even though she didn't see her mother regretting the choice, to know that she'd essentially given it all up for the sake of giving Maya a better life… It made this new opportunity, this role and this first performance coming up that night, feel as big for Maya as it did for Katy.

The hair was finally dealt with, along with everything else, which enabled Maya and Lucas to get into the car and on their way to the theater. They arrived right behind the car which brought Shawn, Nellie, Gracie, and MJ. Haley had been left with a babysitter, which, according to Shawn, was not a well-received decision by the girl in question. She'd seen her brother and sisters get all dressed up, and her father, too, and when she had been left as she was, she'd understood enough to know that she wasn't doing the same thing they were doing that night.

In reverse, it made the other three young Hunters feel very grown up indeed that they had been trusted to go to the show that night. According to Gracie, they had each been made to promise that they would behave, which meant they had to be quiet, couldn't shout anything along the lines of 'hi, Mommy!' at any time, or complain that they were bored… That was another thing. They were told they might not understand everything that was going on, but looking at all three of them it was clear that all they really cared about was seeing their mother up there.

Also along for the show that night were Abigail and James and the kids, and Cecilia, and Cory and Topanga, with two out of three children, and so many more of their friends, their families, and Maya's friends, especially those who had fallen under the umbrella of 'you're our kid's friend, you're family here' in the Hunter Hart house.

"There's so many people already…" Maya remarked as they walked through the crowded lobby and saw into the auditorium, where so many more were already sitting or making their way to their seats. "Been to so many shows out here before, it's never really hit me how many seats there were." Lucas took this to mean 'that is a LOT of people, what if Mom blanks when she sees them?'

"Come on, you've had shows like that before with the band," Lucas pointed out, his covert way of reassuring her. "Way more." She couldn't help but smile at that.

"Well, you're always right there where I can see you," she told him.

"Yeah, and where are we going to be?" he asked, holding up the tickets. Front row, front and center.

All the kids had their own seats, officially, but even before the play started, MJ ended up in Shawn's lap, where he was happily received, while Gracie moved over so that she and Nellie were sharing the seat at their big sister's side.

The premiere performance would soon begin, and to see that curtain open, with the stage all set and Katy a lone figure standing there under the lights… Lucas had turned his head so he might get to see how the others reacted. He saw Shawn, five seats to his right, with his son in his lap, staring up at the woman on stage with so much love in his eyes that it spilled over in unrestrained tears, even as he kept his arms locked around MJ, whose whole face was as good as him shouting out 'Mommy!' which he didn't, instead keeping his lips firmly pressed together. This was a tactic also employed by the twin girls two seats to his right, stuck together, arms looped together and eyes full of wonder.

And Maya… Maya, at his side… He'd reached for her hand, even as the curtain was coming up, and he just felt that breath catch in her at the sight of her mother up there, releasing again as her own face lit up into such a smile. She didn't look away for even a second, might not even have blinked, until Katy's character had exited the stage after the first scene. When she did break contact, it was to check on her sisters to her right, and then to look back at him to her left. She's doing it… He tipped his head. Yeah she is.

Any of them who'd known Katy Hart back in the day would never have expected the performance she put in that night. It wasn't as though they saw her as a joke before, but they definitely did not think of her as a great actress, not even a good one, truth be told. But tonight… tonight, she was mesmerizing. It was night and day, but then the Katy who stood on that stage that night was just a whole other person than the one she'd been as the struggling actress from New York. This was a Katy who'd started her life over, who'd found new love, true love, a Katy who'd gone from doing her best just to provide for one daughter to now juggling four little children and one grown one like a pro. She'd seen ups and downs, wins and losses… and they had made her into this.

If the sight of her at the rise of the curtain had been something to remember, so was the moment when the play ended and the actors were applauded. As she stood there now, with the raucous praise of all these people, it was all there on her face, the realization of that journey, New York to Texas and all those years since the last time she'd practiced her craft.

Maya got to be the first one to approach Katy as she finally came to rejoin her family, and she wrapped her mother in such a hug, the two of them quietly locked together, like the ghosts of that duo from a past life inhabited them. Even without hearing any of it, Lucas just saw Maya whisper at her mother's ear and he knew that it would all come down to one sentiment. I'm so proud of you. Katy had given up so much to raise her baby girl as she'd known she needed to be, and this right here, this was her getting some of it back, and about time, too.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners