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

June 2nd 2020

Chapter 154
Their Construction of Potential

7th week of construction

"Hey, I know that face… I know those little cheeks, and that nose… big bright eyes…" Maya spoke in a hush she couldn't seem to shake, whenever she would be presented with the face of her weeks-old cousin on the screen. "Might be from those many, many pictures I have received and hoarded in my phone like a miser…" she hummed, waving to the small boy in her Aunt Charlie's arms.

"Those lullabies you sent me really do the trick," she smiled. "Put him right to sleep, won't go without them now."

"I recorded them for my siblings when they were little," Maya explained. Now they get to stay in the family… "He is already getting so big…" she declared in amazement, looking at baby Harry.

"I know, I can't believe it's already been two months. I really want to come and visit you guys down in Austin, I think he's getting about old enough I could see us travelling out to you."

"You say the word, we'll put you up," Maya nodded.

"And I really want to see that studio," Charlie smiled, resettling the baby when he started to fuss. "It'd be great if we got to have a session in there, actually in the same room."

"Consider yourself pencilled in for life. And as far as seeing it, I'm about to give you the grand tour… as grand as it can get when it's just the one room anyway. This is like opening day, we did the last touches late last night, I swear a part of me thinks it must all have been some kind of dream I was so tired in the end. The rest of the band and others of our friends are coming over later, there's supposed to be a big red ribbon, scissors and all."

"That's awesome," Charlie laughed. "Oh, last Sunday's family dinner, Uncle Carter found out about you having your studio, making music."

"Is it bad I kind of want him to have a fit over our nickname for it?" Maya smirked, walking and keeping the phone up so Charlie could see her. When her aunt asked about the nickname, Maya told her it was called the Hex, and Charlie laughed at once. "Short for hexagon, because of the shape, but…"

"Between that and Harry here, he might finally think witches have infiltrated the family," Charlie smirked. Maya asked what she meant about Harry. "He's convinced that I named him that because of the books."

"What, Harry Potter? He's still on that? Come on, Pastor, it's been almost thirty years!" Maya didn't know whether to shake her head or laugh, so she did both. "Well, did you? Name him because of…"

"I did, actually," Charlie beamed. "It wasn't because of that, not at first, but maybe it was, subconsciously. Kind of a long story."

"Love long stories," Maya promised.

After she had found out the story of her sister and how she'd run away, nine-year-old Charlie had finally started to put some pieces together. There were little clues, around the house, like the name carved out on the window sill in her room. Her room had been her sister's room before it was hers, and knowing that, she had started to look at the space with brand new eyes. And she had been curious. That had often been one of her greatest qualities, even if it sometimes also got her into trouble.

One afternoon, she had scoured the whole of her room, looking for any other remnant of her sister's presence, anything that might inform her on who Katy was. Maybe for having a similar kind of mind to hers, she had found something that neither of her parents had ever found. She had discovered a loose board inside the closet, and when she'd managed to pull it free, she'd taken a flashlight and swept the beam inside to discover… treasures.

A few strips from a mall photo booth, where young Katy had practiced her glamour shots, on her own or with Betsy – who Charlie did not know either a the time – or even with who she'd laughed to realize was her cousin Randall… Clippings from magazines… A few lost, crumpled up dollar bills… A small figurine of the Empire State building that looked like the kind her grandmother had… A tube of lipstick… And a book.

It wasn't until after the sisters were reunited that this old mystery had been solved. After Uncle Carter had heard of this book and gotten into an argument with his niece, Katy had been told to relinquish it. She'd refused, said she had returned it to the library. They hadn't believed her, and they had searched her room, but they had never found it, wouldn't, because luckily she'd had the presence of mind to slip it in her hiding place whenever she wasn't reading it. She'd meant to take it with her when she'd left, but then it was identified as belonging to her school, and she had been careful not to bring anything that might identify her in case she was stopped on the way to New York. She had always been smarter than they gave her credit for.

In the years before, in the moment when young Charlie had found the book, she had felt like at last… she had this connection to her sister. She'd sat there inside the closet, with her flashlight, and she'd started to read. She'd become so engrossed in the story of the boy who lived, discovering who he was, preparing to go to his new school, that she was discovered there by her father, just returned from chores out on the farm. Charlie had gasped, clutching the book to her chest and staring up to her father, terrified that he would take it away from her. He had seen what she was holding, and later she'd understood that he had recognized it. They'd both stood there for a full minute, and then Tanner had just walked away without a word.

A few days after this, she'd come home from school one afternoon to find a bag on her bed, a paper bag with handles, from a bookstore. When she'd looked inside, she'd found a box set, all seven books, including a clean copy of the same one she'd found and already finished reading, in increments, every night after she'd been sent to bed. Most kids her age would have been daunted by all these books, some so big as to look like dictionaries, but Charlie had always been the best reader in her class, and this was a challenge she was up for.

It was about so much more than the books themselves though, it was the fact that she had them at all, that she could hold them in her hands, that she could have them to keep, not in a hole in the wall but there on her desk where she could see them. She'd run down and found her father, and embraced him tight, thanking him about a hundred times.

"You tell me all about them, alright?" he'd told her, which might as well have been a hug back from him.

It had been the start, for Charlie. It had taken her a year, but she'd gotten through all the books, and from there she'd just started over, and over, and over… The entire reason she'd started having people call her Charlie instead of Charlene was thanks to Charlie Weasley. And every time… every time she'd read those books, a part of her felt like she was with her sister. She didn't even know if she'd ever read the other ones beyond that first one, but it didn't matter. It had been important enough for her to have it, to hide it.

So, yeah, she had named her son Harry for a very specific reason, just as she had named her daughter Caitlin, as a subtle nod to Katy. She had never known for sure whether or not she would meet her sister, but she had carried her in her heart from the moment she'd known about her.

"See, I told you I liked long stories," Maya laughed, swiping at a tear coming from her right eye. "Just going to need a minute… and maybe I'm going to be re-reading some books later tonight… Okay, I'm good," she breathed as Charlie laughed. "Ready to see the Hex?"

"Yes, please."

The May morning could not have been a better one to inaugurate the space. Maya held the phone with the camera allowing Charlie to see what she was seeing, stepping out the kitchen door. The path began there, leading up ahead to the structure with flowers all around it. Some might have assumed it was something like a greenhouse, or a guest house. When the door was unlocked and opened however, it revealed something entirely more musical.

"Oh my g…" Charlie blurted out, and for seeing it all completed at last, for the first time, in the daylight, Maya had to agree, it was kind of stunning.

A lot of thought had gone into how best to set the whole place up, from the structure itself through what would be going inside it. For one thing, they wanted to soundproof it as best as possible, but they also weren't looking to have zero windows, so they'd accounted for this in the number, position, and material for the windows. The building, as its name promised, was six-sided. The side aligned with the path had the door, of course, and the sides to the right and left of it had the windows, leaving the back three windowless. The instruments were installed in that half of the studio, with room to spare.

"The desk is here for now, for the equipment when we'll be recording, and when I'll be putting the tracks together," Maya told her aunt. "There's a lot of things I'd like to get, but we've managed without them up to now, so they'll come when they come. Got our couch, of course, and the shelves, and then these… they're my favorite part." About every bit of wall space she had been able to use was covered in photos, and clippings, tracking nearly ten years of TXNY, and now her own solo achievements as a songwriter…

"What are you going to do when you have new things to put up there?" Charlie asked, after having requested some pictures so she might have a closer look at everything.

"I've got binders and boxes on the shelves there, and a file cabinet back in the house," Maya told her. "But, I don't know, sometimes I just think… I might leave it like this. All of it, that's what came before, what led me here… I want to be able to see them, to remember… to not forget how I got here."

"Did you get my package?"

"There's a package?" Maya looked to her aunt on the screen.

"It should have arrived, I made sure. Someone else must have accepted it for you."

Running back to the house, she'd discovered that this package had indeed arrived, at which point it had been hidden away, until this particular moment, the day of the grand opening, by Lucas. She barely had time to pretend to be affronted for being kept in the dark, when she saw the size of the package, which could well have been a long coffee table, by the length of it, though much lighter than anticipated…

"Charlie, what did you do?" Maya laughed, as she worked to get the box open.

"You're a musician, I work in a music store, I really didn't do that much," her aunt pointed out, and how she'd managed in that moment to sound like some perfectly calibrated hybrid of her sister and her niece was as much a mystery as a delight.

Inside the box was a case, in the telltale sign of the object it contained. Maya had two guitars already, sure, one her own and the other passed on by her father, but when she opened the case and saw the one inside, her third… Oh, it was a beauty. She'd seen a similar one in the store, the day she'd gone in and discovered her aunt, had been taken with it. Now that this one was in her possession, it was as though she couldn't stop noticing the details in it.

"Charlie…" she breathed. "This is one of his, isn't it?" she asked, recalling how Mr. Olsen, David's father and the original owner of the store, made custom guitars on the side. It was how the store had even managed to stay afloat for a while in the beginning.

"It is, yes. He's sort of stopped doing them now, but David asked, and since it was for you… Think of it as a… day one in the Hex sort of gift."

"I have got to get us a gig so I can play this one on stage…" Maya pulled the instrument from its case, held it and gave it a few tentative notes… She loved it instantly. "I really don't know what to say, I… Thank you."

They had barely gotten off the phone, and Maya still had the new guitar in hand, when Sam came barrelling down the stairs so fast that it was a wonder he hadn't tripped and landed on his face.

"Woah, hey, easy!" Maya called to him.

"Mom's having the baby," Sam cut in, putting his hurry in context and drawing the two of them into it. Maya looked to Lucas, who went and started looking into the fastest way to get them to Tucson, while she put the guitar back in its case, and this back in the box, before taking it upstairs. The big scissors were going to have to wait.

Hours later, they were standing in a hospital room, looking on as Sam held his brand new baby sister, Maisie.

"Feels like we were just doing this a minute ago, doesn't it?" Lucas whispered to Maya, who was all smiles, looking down at the small babe.

"A whole studio ago, yeah," she laughed. "And we'll be there again before we know it," she went on, which earned her a curious look from her fiancé. "Maeve?" she reminded him, and he breathed.

"Right… Right…"

"Relax, Huckleberry, you'll get your turn."

Holding baby Maisie, Maya looked at this girl who brought the Hart and Lane kids together. She may have had zero genes in common with her, but that did not make her any less of a sister, and she could not wait to find out who she would become, who she would be most like, and how she would be unique.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners