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

May 26th 2020

Chapter 147
Their Time in Discovery

When they had gone back to the hotel at the end of the night, after the party, they'd needed to work out sleeping arrangements for Sam and the little Hunters, now that they were there as well. They weren't going to go and rent another room for the one night, so instead Sam would take to the couch in Maya and Lucas' room, while the twins would scoot in between the couple in the bed, and MJ and Haley would do the same between their parents in the room across the hall. After having put the twins to bed, Maya had gone across to say goodnight to the younger pair. They were not about to let themselves get short changed on a goodnight from their big sister when she was in the same building as they were.

"What time are we leaving tomorrow?" she'd asked her mother in a whisper, after MJ and Haley had dozed off.

"Just before lunch, I think," Katy told her, as they stood out in the hall together. There was a look about her, and she wasn't sure why but it prompted Maya to ask if she was alright. "I'm fine, baby girl, really," Katy smiled, touching her arm, her face, before pulling her into her arms for a hug.

"You didn't think you would be, did you?" Maya quietly asked.

"I don't know why part of me thinks it would have been easier if it had gone wrong," Katy shook her head as they stood back and looked to each other once again. Maya considered this question, but her mother just told her goodnight, and they went into their respective rooms. Entering hers, Maya found that Sam was already lying on the couch, either asleep or heading that way, which Lucas sat on his side of the bed, waiting for her to join him before lying down properly, knowing it wouldn't be long that Gracie would burrow to his side as she'd done for about as long as the twins had been known to climb between them in the night.

"All bed guests off to sleep?" he whispered, then, "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," Maya assured him, going into the bathroom to change. When she came back out again, she climbed in on her side of the bed, where Nellie soon curled in at her side, and Maya put her arm around her sister, delicately trailing her fingers through her brown hair so she'd go on sleeping.

Her mother hadn't said it, but she didn't have to. Maya knew… When all was said and done, the party had been wonderful, the hiccups were minimal at best as far as her reintroduction to the family… This should have been good news, effacing all worries, and yet… All it had left Katy with, on this night at least, was the notion that she could… that she should have gone back to them years ago. Maybe in the days where they lived in New York, it was understandable that she wouldn't have done it, when they had been struggling the way they'd done, but after Texas, after their lives had taken the turn they'd taken… Why hadn't they gone back, why hadn't they put her family out of their misery and shown that they were alive, and well… Why had they let so many years go by in staying apart, when being together again had been so far from the end of the world Katy had allowed herself to imagine?

"Maya? Hey, you still there?"

"What?" Maya blinked, looking down to the phone on the floor. She picked it up again, standing from the ground after a beat. "Sorry, spaced out," she told Sophie as she ran a hand through her hair and took a few slow steps along the attic floor. "Where was I?"

"The last additions to my once perfect seating chart for your big July day," Sophie reminded her.

"Yeah, okay," Maya turned and snatched up the last envelopes. "Well, there's my grandparents, plus my mom's sister and her husband, plus their daughter and then… She'll have had the baby by then, but she's not sure yet whether she'll bring him. He'll be… something like four months old by then, I think, or… not quite four."

"And will he be having the meat, the fish, or the veg?" Sophie joked, making Maya laugh.

"Wish I could ask, but he's a bit unreachable at the moment."

"Well, I'll make sure and put them in some choice spots. Might have to bump some people, but hey, nothing wrong with a bit of mingling, getting to know some new people…"

"Thanks a lot, really," Maya smiled.

"Hey, what wouldn't I do for you, Hart?"

In the weeks since the party, Maya and her mother both had been in contact with several of the family members they had encountered back in Arkansas in one way or another. Maya had needed to correspond with all of them, of course, with the invitations being sent out and then the responses she and Lucas had received, and then the pictures for her albums, but beyond that… On the whole, there had been a couple of phone calls from some of them, no contact from others… The ones she'd been in contact with the most, as she had expected, were Betsy, Randall, Charlie, and her grandparents.

Charlie she had been texting back and forth with… daily, from the day they'd left and returned to Austin. There had been some calls, too, but their message thread was constant and lengthening by the day. There would be life updates, Maya asking after the unborn Olsen boy soon to be born, Charlie inquiring after the wedding preparations… Once, about a week ago now, she had slipped away into the back of the theater, got that wedding dress back on, and recorded a short video she had then sent off to Charlie and Betsy. If they had been in her life back in October, when she'd shown her dress to others in the family, she would have shown it to them, too, wouldn't she?

The responses had been animated as she had imagined they might be. Charlie had shown the video to her mother, as Maya had asked that she do, knowing her grandmother would not have had the means to receive and see it any other way. According to Charlie, there had been many happy tears, and the request to know whether she had all of her 'something old, something new…'

The bond to Charlie had been easy. They were nearly the same age, shared a deep love of music and making music. Her aunt had a beautiful singing voice herself, which Maya had discovered once she'd gotten her to give a small performance over a video call. They both had their guitars, and by the end of the call the two of them had been playing and singing together, miles and miles away but together. Since then, they'd started to make these sort of jam sessions a weekly thing.

As easy as it had been with Charlie, Maya had expected it. The ease she felt toward her grandparents, now that was the one able to catch her by surprise. Well, maybe not surprise, but… It was like that night back at the hotel, wasn't it? Her mother had not expected her return home to go as well as it had done, and Maya hadn't foreseen herself growing so easily attached to the pair she'd grown up thinking of as little more than antagonistic characters in her mother's story. But she had met them now, and she had spent time with them, spoken to them, and… she loved them. In many ways they were all still getting to know one another, but that only gave them more ways to connect, more blank areas to fill in, and there was an eagerness on both sides to do exactly that. Maya was really coming to appreciate, thanks to them, thanks to her father and her siblings, that there was such a thing as a time for everything and to everything its time. They would not have had a relationship as they were forging now, not if things had happened any other way than the way they did now.

The first time she'd gotten to have a moment with each of her grandparents, where it was just her and Tanner, and her and Angela… Those were just memories she knew she would turn back to, when she needed to. Just as it had been with Betsy, sitting outside the house, there had been a couple more moments when the whole overwhelming spirit of the party had sent Maya seeking just a minute away from all the new faces, and all the questions coming left and right.

One of those had sent her into the kitchen, where she discovered an as yet unseen member of the Clutterbucket household lying under the table and staring up at her with round curious eyes.

"Well hello…" she'd whispered, crouching to extend her hand to the dog, who took a sniff and slowly stood up and approached her while she sat down on the floor. The dog was rewarded on this approach with some good scratches which endeared Maya to him at once. "That's a lot of people for you, too, huh… Scout," she read off his collar. He lay his head down on her knee, and for a minute or so they just sat there, enjoying the silence, near enough to silence…

"What… oh, it's you," her grandmother's voice startled her and she looked up, finding Angela looking back at her and the dog with a smile. "I was wondering where you'd gotten off to."

"Sorry, I just wanted to…"

"Please, no need to apologize, I can imagine this must be a lot all at once," Angela told her.

"Yeah," Maya nodded. At least they all understood this, yeah?

"Scout's warmed up to you," her grandmother declared, pulling a chair from the table so she might sit near the pair of them. "He's almost two years old, still keeps shy around most people. Your grandfather says he's just picky about who he likes."

"Well, I appreciate the vote of confidence," Maya looked down to Scout, who licked at her hand and made her laugh.

"We had his mom before him, and her mom before that," Angela informed her granddaughter. "That line's gone on since the first of our dogs… well, fifty years ago."

"Wow…" Maya blinked, looking down to shy Scout again. "So my mom…"

"We had Chestnut, when she was born, and then Champ when Katy was almost six, and then Fleet…" Her grandmother looked so happy to recall all of these, but now her face had changed again, and Maya felt bad for even sending her down that path. "Oh, it's alright," her grandmother assured her, noticing the look on her face, but it still left Maya feeling like she was intruding on this memory. Reaching up her arm, she'd set her hand over Angela's, where it had been sitting on her knee. Her mother's mother looked down and smiled, turning her hand over so she might grasp Maya's. "Do, uh… do you have a dog back home?"

"A few, yeah," Maya laughed. For a while, she sat there, petting Scout with one hand as she told her grandmother about Trix and Lou and Archer back home, about those who had come and gone along the way before then… Eventually, they'd had to go back into the party, leaving Scout to keep on enjoying the quiet.

Maya had half a mind to go back to him, the next time she'd decided she needed a break. But then by chance she had crossed eyes with her grandfather, who seemed to read this need on her face. He'd pointed discreetly toward the steps leading up to the second floor, and she had gone off that way without question. Reaching the top, she'd turned to find he was coming along, too.

"Second door on your left," Tanner told her, and she continued forward until she reached the closed door. She turned back to look to her grandfather before pushing the door open.

The room had not been kept like some time capsule out of 1999, but she still knew this would have been her mother's room back in the day. For having heard about her childhood and adolescence here, it wasn't as though the walls would have been lined with posters or anything at all that really said 'Katy,' but this had been her space, and she could just about imagine her in it.

"Was this Charlie's room, too?" she'd asked her grandfather, neither of them having ever stated aloud that this had been Katy's.

"Yes," her grandfather confirmed. "Angela wanted to put her in one of the other rooms, wanted… to keep to the belief that Katy would return to this room." He grew quiet here, showing he had known well enough this would not be the case. "She was afraid that we were saying we had forgotten about her, as though she had never existed," he went on, walking slowly over to the window sill. Maya watched as he dragged one of his long fingers along the edge and, taking a step closer, she could just see letters etched there in the wood. She smirked.

"Mom did that?"

"She was eleven… no, twelve. It was her birthday. She said that she wanted to leave her mark." Maya had a feeling this hadn't gone over well, but she didn't ask it; that wasn't the point. "No, it was right for Charlie to have the room, to share in her sister's space," Tanner nodded, turning back to his granddaughter. "Did she tell you about when she left here?" She hesitated, but she nodded. "It was the television, wasn't it? The last straw?" She didn't reply, didn't know what to say, but it wasn't necessary. "I shouldn't have done it," he shook his head. "Didn't mean to, got carried away. It was too late after that."

"My father, my birth father, he left when I was six," Maya told her grandfather, who looked back at her when she said it. "It was just Mom and me after that until Shawn came along and the two of them got together. It was rough for a long time and… well, she should get to tell you that part. The point is… my father came back into my life when I was twenty-one. I had… a little over a year with him before he died, but… once he was back in, he was in. All the years in between, I couldn't forget them, but they didn't affect things going forward. You, and Grandma, and everyone, and Mom… you lost so many more years, but that time's over now, yeah?"

Her grandfather had looked at her, his baby girl's baby girl, and maybe in that exact moment they had become family in more than name and blood.

"So, you're getting married," he nodded to her hand and she looked down to her engagement ring before nodding to him. "This young man of yours, he's a good one?"

"Kind of the best," Maya smiled.

"I'd like to hear about him, and you… if that's alright?" He was almost as nervous as the dog down in the kitchen, this Grandpa of hers.

"How much time do you have?"

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners