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

June 16th 2020

Chapter 168
Their Choice of Music

"I don't think he's going to let her go anytime soon," Lucas smiled, turning back to Maya, Nadine, and Isadora. The three of them were already looking on to where Zay sat on the ground, holding the hands of eighteen-month-old Ada Marie Minkus as she stood on her wobbly little legs and stared back at him. She giggled at everything he did, which only prompted him to do more.

"Well, we'll be in Austin for a couple of weeks, he will see her plenty of times," Isadora pointed out. The Minkus family would have been in town for the wedding alone, but then the band anniversary had become a thing, and scheduled as it was, not two weeks before the big day, they had turned their visit into a sort of family vacation. "I'll be happy not to be on a plane again for a while."

"Ada didn't like to fly?" Nadine sympathetically guessed.

"Oh, no, she loved it, she was having the time of her life. I think the altitudes just didn't favor me right now with the…" She stopped so very suddenly that it was impossible for them not to catch on to the expression and how it read as her having been on the verge of saying something she wasn't supposed to say.

"With the what?" Maya and Nadine both asked, almost in sync. Isadora looked back at them, doing an excellent impression of a gaping fish, struggling without words.

"Al… titude?" she almost squeaked.

"Try that again?" Maya's brow arched in disbelief. Their visiting friend and former bandmate mumbled something without meeting their eyes. "Speak up, Smackle," Maya tapped her knee.

"Okay, okay, I'm pregnant, are you happy?" Isadora finally blurted out, sitting up straight.

"What'd she say?" Zay called up from the ground as he whipped his head back to find the trio on the couch already huddled together and embracing their ability to hug.

"Of course we're happy, why wouldn't we be?" Maya asked Isadora, the tremor in her voice showing the heights of this happiness. At the return of the gaping fish, Nadine was the one to understand why she'd been trying to keep quiet on the subject.

"Hey, it's okay, really," she told her. "Better than okay, it's wonderful. How long have you known?" she asked, chuckling when she saw Zay on the ground, attempting to give Ada a delicate sort of high five over her being about to become a big sister. The girl didn't exactly comprehend the purpose of the exercise, but she found it hilarious anyway.

"Few weeks now," Isadora replied with a nod. "I'm due just after Valentine's Day."

Farkle had just been out at the rental car, getting Ada's things back into the car after their short visit before checking into the hotel for the night. When he had come back in to collect his wife and daughter, he was snatched up into the arms of his old friend, where he discovered the cat was out of the bag about Baby Minkus 2. Looking back at him now, Maya could hardly see her little Farkle friend in this grown man, father of one and soon two. It was bittersweet sometimes, to look at her friends, especially the ones who'd been with her the longest, and see how much they had all changed. It was a good change, wonderful, but it was still a change. The past was the past, and it hadn't all been good, but some of it had been legendary, and that was what Farkle was, and that was what Riley was…

"You're lucky you're already here or I would have hunted you down for not telling me sooner," Maya told him with a smirk.

"Would you have been able to control yourself the moment you saw us?" Farkle countered. Maya decided to let him have it. There was no way he wouldn't win his argument in the end.

"I'm going to go cuddle your firstborn before you leave," she sauntered off, allowing Lucas to step up and have his own moment.

"You figured it out, didn't you?" Farkle asked him, calling back their last conversation before the Minkus family had flown in.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Lucas shrugged this off, though his eyes said enough.

As difficult as it was for those four of them who now knew, the secret of the new baby on its way was kept through the days to follow. The next day, the band had gathered in the Hex, the better to run through the evening's show. There was already something electric about gathering all members past and present of TXNY, but to have them in the studio like this… It was power enough for the whole lane. Maya on guitar, Riley on keyboard, Kayla on drums, Rosa on bass and Isadora as well, Nadine with her violin and Willow at the ready with some of her array, ready for whatever…

Maya couldn't even stay and face forward, she had to turn and face toward the other six, to see them all as they sang and played, to immortalize it all in her head for future artistic endeavors. She looked at them as they did their part, women all. They had started this, a bunch of kids who'd found it amusing to stand on a 'stage' and sing together at the Babineaux family summer party. Some songs were written, and somehow they'd gotten traction. They'd started doing shows, they'd appeared on television, on the radio. Albums happened, and so many more songs… Their voices had found ears in more countries than they could know, and they had been imbued with the power to cause change, using it well. They had been offered fame on a platter and turned it aside in favor of this self-made power. The lineup had changed a couple of times, but here they stood now, halfway through their twenties, some married, some with children, most out of school and evolving into the careers they had worked for. TXNY stood, and it would keep standing, if they had any say in it.

"Hey," Nadine had stopped her, after practice had ended and the others started to head back out toward the house. When it was just the two of them, Maya shut the door and turned back to her friend.

"What's up?" she asked, just as Nadine caught her in a hug. Maya reciprocated it without question.

"Thank you so much," Nadine told her, and now she smiled, understanding. They had passed on the letters, from Maya, Lucas, and Sam, but also Katy, Shawn, Tom, and Melinda, to Zay and her the night before, as they'd gone home. The first two had been expected and received with thanks, the third had been a surprise, much appreciated. The additional stack had very nearly floored the prospective parents. Going from the look on Nadine's face now, she and Zay had read them all and been deeply touched.

"Hey, when have we ever done things halfway?" Maya laughed. "Damn, now I just thought about your whole pep talk about me being a teacher, is it too late for edits?" she joked, and now Nadine laughed along with her. "Don't start crying now, no one likes a puffy-faced superstar," Maya led her bandmate out of the Hex to rejoin the others.

There had been just a bit of crying two nights past, when the letters had been swapped between Maya, Lucas, and Sam, to ensure no mistakes had managed to evade them before they passed on the envelopes to their friends. For Sam, it meant making a few discoveries about his sister and her husband to be, while Maya and Lucas relived many a memory from years both recent and further in the past. It was difficult by the end of it to think that anyone would not want to put a child in their care after reading all of that, but then it wasn't up to them, was it? All they could do was hope that they had done enough.

And now here they were, celebrating this wildly unexpected anniversary. Back in the day, the girls might have been satisfied to see their little project last the rest of the summer, a few short weeks until the start of the school year. They would never have believed a decade could go by and they'd still be at it.

Already, they had been treated with what felt like 'an abundance of feels.' There had been 'Shirt Day,' as Cecilia had told them about. Outside of the city, the state, the country, the whole continent, fans had been holding to the appointed day and sending in photos to show their own participation. In the city, it hadn't taken long that a scheme had been organized between the bandmates, to go in search of these local fans who would be easily spotted, just to say hello. There had been many, many giddy girls and boys in Austin that day.

The closer they had been getting to today, the more their fan base had seemingly been working overtime to make them happy cry, with so many testimonies of how they had discovered the band, and how much they loved their music, and which songs were their favorites, and how they appreciated everything they did… And then all the videos, all the covers… There were just so many, and they were all still working their way through it all, determined as they were not to let any one of them fall unnoticed.

Being mindful of how widespread this love had always been, their show was to be livestreamed and later available on their site, for those who could not be there in person to see it. This wasn't just TXNY performing, this was TXNY expressing ten years of gratitude, for all the support they had received, support which had made it so that they were even here at all, that they hadn't just moved on to something else. For her part, Maya really would not have felt it to be right if they didn't make it happen this way. She had sort of benefited most of all, hadn't she? Yes, she was with the band, on her own terms, and she would continue to be, but she also had this contract, which would never have happened without the band. This contract would mean a freedom of sorts, the kind she might not have had on an art teacher's salary. She had not forgotten where she came from. This meant the world to her.

"Are you a singer or a kangaroo?" Lucas asked, when he went to find her backstage, before they went up, and found her casually jumping around.

"Too much energy, letting it out," she informed him.

"Okay, can you just hop over here then?" he extended his arm with a smile. Maya laughed, skittering over to him and locking her arms around his waist.

"Hey there," she smirked up at him. "Are you the bouncer?"

"No, I'm pretty sure that's you right now," he replied, with a proud sort look on his face, especially as she realized she'd walked right into the joke.

"Ha, ha, you're hilarious," she attempted to flatly reply but mostly fell victim to her own giggles.

"And you are such a weirdo," he declared as he held her close.

"Soon to be Mrs. Weirdo," she nodded. "Go on, say it."

"Twelve days," he happily complied. She mouthed the words back at him and he leaned in to kiss her.

"Now, you hold on to that thought, I'm going to go do a thing," Maya informed him, nodding off toward the stage entrance.

Soon, Lucas would be out in the audience, along with the rest of the friends and family gathered that evening. He was all too happy to rejoin the lineup of various boyfriends and husbands, with Dylan, Zay, Farkle, Will, and Lion. Maybe it was all the time they had spent writing those letters for Zay and Nadine, but something about being surrounded by all these people tonight, the friends they had made and kept along the years, felt particularly special.

On the stage, the seven strong roster of TXNY in its tenth year was received with all the energy they had been left to expect and then some.

"Well, she's down for the count," Willow later declared, smiling, as she looked on to the sleeping Isadora. They had returned to the house on the lane, after the show was over, because how else could they cap off the night but to hang out and have themselves a sleepover? The mom of three had worked to carefully get the sleeping one settled in, undisturbed. Maya suspected she was on to the secret of the new Minkus baby, as she'd be bound to pick up on a few things, though she didn't breathe a word. "Been a while since I did a show, I'm kind of tapped out, too."

"With three of your own, that's no wonder," Kayla smiled. They could hardly believe how much time had gone by, but then there would be the Obi kids, with Zola already four years old, ruling merrily over her brothers, and Sekani already two and a half and chatting up a storm, and little Liam who had turned one just last month.

"I'm just happy not to be constantly pregnant anymore at this point," Willow joked.

"I never get used to this feeling, you know?" Rosa hummed, lying back on her sleeping bag. "I'm exhausted, but I also feel like I could keep going for hours."

"We could watch a movie," Riley suggested, already halfway to her phone to seek out options. Rosa gave a dismissive noise at the suggestion, tapping her roommate on the leg so she'd stop. "Or sleep. Sleep is also good," Riley smiled, and Rosa nodded, tapping at her pillow to adjust it.

"Hey, Rosa," Nadine stretched out her foot to nudge her, sending their youngest member flailing and making the others laugh. "Who was that girl who came to see you after the show?" Rosa opened an eye. "Classmate, co-worker?"

"Huh? Oh, her… yeah…" Rosa slowly responded. Possibly, the exhaustion of the night was making it difficult for her to come up with an answer… Which was to say she didn't want to share the actual answer, which left her in need of a lie to cover up… It was too late now. "It's a long story and I am going to sleep now, good night, great show, bye," she waved her hand turned on to her side, leaving the others to share a look translating to 'if I didn't know any better, I'd say Shorty's in love.' Maya scooted over, tapping Rosa's shoulder.

"What's her name?" A few seconds went by.

"Jenna."

"Are you going to want that plus one after all?" A few seconds went by, and a few more after that.

"Maybe."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners