May 27th 2020

Chapter 148
Their Construction of an Idea

"I know that face…" Lucas breathed, kissing Maya's shoulder as he held her one morning. They had both woken up early, which had very much gone the way of 'one thing led to another,' and now as they lay there, feeling their hearts slowly regain a normal pace, she was staring into nowhere, the way she might, when 'nowhere' was in fact filled with thoughts from her mind. "Hey," he called on her attention with a few more kisses to that shoulder which soon began travelling nearer her throat as his arms held her closer.

"Just because I say nothing, doesn't mean I can't hear you," Maya breathed. "But please don't let that stop you," she smiled, dragging fingers along his arm. He was more than happy to carry on, and they both knew where this would go… again… if neither one of them interrupted. Tempted as she was to go down that road, she couldn't help sharing the idea now occupying her brain. "I want to make a studio." Lucas made a noise to confirm he was hearing her, still attached to the soft skin of her neck for a few more seconds before the words finally connected with the part of his brain that could still think about anything else but…

"Wait, what do you mean?" he propped himself up on an elbow to look at her.

"I mean a space somewhere, for band practice, and for recording songs. I'm not saying I'm looking to make some kind of empire here, but at this point it just feels like I need to take a step above, more than our basement and my computer, you know? Plus, sooner or later we're going to need that space in the basement for more than this."

"I hear you," he nodded. She smiled. "What did you have in mind?" he asked, even as he knew the answer to this question would have to be something like 'a lot, too much.'

"Do you remember when you first told me about the house, Pappy Joe leaving it to you?" Maya asked.

"I do, I remember you hated that I told you because you were going to have to wait almost four years to do anything about it," he nodded. She smiled. "Realizing that was almost six years ago now…"

"Right?" Maya chuckled. "I suggested you could build yourself a clinic of some kind, out on the land," she reminded, which had him grinning.

"You called me a hot shot veterinarian."

"I stand by that," she beamed.

"Yeah, I noticed," he teased, stealing another kiss. She held to his face as he pulled back to look at her. "I also remember I suggested making you a gallery room, or…" He stopped, figuring out why she'd brought up the memory now.

"Or a studio," she finished the sentence for him, sealing it with a smile.

"You want to build a studio… out there," he nodded toward the back of the house.

"Seriously considering it, yeah, which is why I'm mentioning it, because I can't just…"

"Okay," Lucas cut in, and her eyebrow raised. Really? "Yes," he told her, in no uncertain terms, and her face spread into the biggest of grins.

"Yay…" she whispered.

When they had gone downstairs for breakfast and he had seen his sister come along with a sketchbook, pencils, and her laptop in tow, Sam asked her what she was working on now.

"Building a studio," she declared, setting her load down on the table. Sam looked at her, confused.

"What… how… Where?" he asked. Maya and Lucas pointed off in the general direction of 'out there.' "That only answers one thing," Sam frowned.

"Barely had the idea like twenty minutes ago, leave me alone," Maya stuck her tongue out at him and Sam retorted in kind, while Lucas chuckled and shook his head, just as the quiet of the morning was broken with the distant sound of Maya's ringtone coming from upstairs. "Figures…" she dashed off back up the stairs, the urgency riling up the dogs, who started barking and running after her.

"I know you did all that work on the house when you were going to propose and everything, but this is different, isn't it?" Sam turned to Lucas.

"I'm not just going to go and buy materials and try to do it on my own, come on," Lucas pointed out. "We know people, we can figure this out. It'll be like a fun family project," he tapped at his brother's arm, which seemed to encourage him some.

Maya came back downstairs a minute later, looking like her whole outlook for this simple Saturday at home had gone out the window.

"That was my mother. Randall called, Charlie's in labor…" she revealed with a smile. She'd been texting with her aunt just the night before, and Katy's little sister had been certain her baby was gearing up for an exit any day now. "Dad's going to stay here with the kids, but Mom wants to go out there. We might not make it before the baby's actually born, but she wants to try and well…" And she was going out there with her, which now posed a new question: what about the two of them? She had to leave soon, so they had to decide.

"I have a project I need to work on," Sam told his sister. "I'll be fine, I can go and help your dad." Maya looked at him like she wanted to catch up his head in her hands and kiss it.

"How are we travelling?" Lucas asked his fiancée, leading on as they went and got dressed.

It would be a good seven hours or so on the road, depending on traffic, but soon they were off, Maya, Lucas, and Katy. Lucas took the wheel, leaving the mother and daughter to share the backseat, the better for them to simultaneously keep the other from spiraling into wondering how long it would take, and if they would get there in time… Maya ended up telling her mother about her plan for the studio, and this kept all three of them talking for the length of the ride. Katy was only mildly surprised at the plan, and then it all became logistics. How big of a structure were they thinking about? Where exactly on the land were they going to put it? Who could they get to help plan the thing and what needed to be done to make it happen? Lucas had first pointed out that Rosa would possibly have something to provide, with her studying architectural history and interior design, and then just as quickly, recalling a conversation he'd had with Maeve, he'd realized…

"Carter," he spoke even as the name passed through his mind.

"My uncle?" Katy asked.

"No, no, uh… My co-worker, Maeve, he…" Lucas started to explain, unsure now what they had or hadn't told Katy regarding Maeve's baby and the plan for her father to have sole custody. It felt like it had all been going so fast, and Maeve was already seven months along. She wasn't actually all that big, though it definitely showed. And now she knew the baby was a girl. She hadn't meant to find out, not at the time, but then someone had slipped up and said something, and there was no putting the genie back in the bottle. Now Carter had asked if she would consider, in full respect of her wishes to pass their daughter on to him, if she would like to pick her name. Maeve had agreed, but that had also been weeks ago, and she was coming no closer to choosing.

"Oh, right," Maya cut in here, allowing them to get to the point. "He could actually help out, might know other people for it, too. Do you think he'd do it?"

"Doesn't hurt to ask," Katy declared, to which Lucas nodded. "And with a new baby coming…"

"That applies to like half the people we know these days, doesn't it?" Maya had to reflect. Maeve, Abigail, Charlie… Nadine, too, before long, if she and Zay finally actually managed to get pregnant… "Alright, maybe not half, but you get what I'm saying."

The drive had been rounding up on eight hours, from the moment they had taken off from the Hunter-Hart house to pick up Katy and through to when they pulled up to the hospital. Maya and her mother had gotten out and headed in while Lucas went to park and joined them after.

"You know, I can't figure out if this place has changed at all in thirty years," Katy commented as they walked through the hospital. "Last time I was here, I was about thirteen, burned my arm trying to do… something to my hair, don't even remember what except that it didn't work, I burned myself, and nearly torched the bathroom along with it."

"Wow, you were a menace," Maya teased and laughed at the almost penitent look on her mother's face. "Starting to feel a lot better about some of the stuff I pulled."

"You really want to test that theory?" Katy gave her a new look, which put an end to the statement.

The nearer they got to the delivery rooms to find the family, they quickly figured out that they had not missed the birth at all, though any minute now that was going to change. Out in the hall they came upon the small party in wait. This included Randall, who had called Katy, David's father, David's mother – with little Caitlin in her arms – and Tanner Clutterbucket. He had the slouched shoulders and slow walk up and down the hallway, of a father who could not help but worry while his daughter could be heard from inside the room. There, as expected, she would be surrounded by her husband and her mother.

"Ma-ya!" Caitlin exclaimed, the way she'd taken to do, whenever she called her cousin's name. The others had looked up at this. They all looked glad for their arrival; Tanner, even now, looked startled to find his eldest daughter stood before him. Now, to have her here on this day already promised to be one great one… It was almost too much joy for the emotionally restrained old man to take. Katy had gone and hugged him, and he'd wrapped her in those long arms like the preciously returned gift that she was.

"Hanging in there?" Maya asked with a smile, when her turn came to be greeted by the giant of a man that he was.

"Yes, I think so," he nodded to her before looking to Katy again. "Charlene said to send you in when you came, if you…" She didn't need convincing, and soon Katy went into the delivery room.

By the time the cries of newborn Harry Olsen were heard, not twenty minutes later, Maya was sitting with Lucas, as three-year-old Caitlin sat in her cousin's lap, toy guitar in her arms as always. According to David's father, they had tried giving the girl stuffed animals, or dolls, and none of them had worked. It was the guitar or nothing at all. The announcement of the birth was received, happily so, along with the news of both mother and son doing well.

"I'm really glad we got to be here today," Maya told Lucas as they waited for their turn to go in and see Charlie and the baby.

"Me, too," Lucas nodded. "Oh, thank you," he looked down to find Caitlin holding out her guitar to him. When he took it, the girl was able to hop down from Maya's lap, after which she held out her hands again. "There you go," Lucas returned the guitar.

"Time to go meet your little brother, huh?" Maya laughed, seeing how the girl stood there, as though ready to go in and put on a show. She nodded.

"One of these days, we're going to look back on this, when she's a world superstar," Lucas smiled, after David had come to escort his daughter into the room. Maya turned a smile back at him. She could believe it.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners