A/N: Daisyangel, I'm sending you a PM in a minute :)

June 19th 2020

Chapter 171
Their Night With Memories

Missy's grandparents returned home just as the room witnessed the arrival of the third puppy. They all stood in watch as Coraline tended to it, warmed by the confirmation that the puppy was looking well. With each new one that came along, it felt as though Coraline was growing more anxious to see that they would be healthy, alive.

"You got it, yeah, you did," Lucas told the mother, watching the puppy and waiting to move it with its sisters. She was so intent on this one that they feared for a moment she might have felt something was wrong with it, something the rest of them couldn't see. But when Lucas got to pick it up and have a look, he found nothing but an alert newborn, breathing well enough, behaving no differently than the others. "He's alright, see?" he held out the little male for his mother to see, and she sniffed and licked at him some more. They decided to leave him with her as they awaited the next one.

"Are you all getting hungry? We'll fix you up something to eat," Missy's grandmother declared, looking to the quartet sitting by for the birth. Joanne Sanderson had been a presence in Lucas' memories for about as long as he could remember. Very often, when he'd be visiting his grandparents out here, she would be at the house, or he would be taken there along with Pappy Joe and Nana Sus. When he had been out at the house, fixing it up for all those months, she would stop by from time to time, bringing refreshments, insisting they were free to drop in for lunch any time.

"Thanks, that'd be great," he told her, turning back to Maya. "Still digesting?" he smirked.

"You would think that watching all of this would cut my appetite even more than a full breakfast, but I think I'm just about ready for lunch now," Maya insisted, adding, "Especially from her."

As they waited, listening to the cries of the three newborn pups, they were aware of how time was already advancing, which would mean that, depending on how many puppies would be born today, and how much time went by between them, they could be here well into the evening.

"They're going to think we ran off and ditched them," Maya reached into her pocket for her phone. As expected, even though they were meant to be given the day off, there were a few messages waiting, the most recent taking on a comically confused tone as to why they were neither one of them answering calls or messages.

"Well they can't separate us now," Lucas pointed out, which made her smile.

"I'll just let Riley know where we are, she can calm the masses." A minute later, Riley replied and Maya took up her phone again. "The band's practicing for tomorrow," she told Lucas, her voice rising into laughter a moment later. He wondered what was funny, and she showed him her phone.

Along with the message, which they had to guess had been dictated to someone else, likely Dylan, was a picture, taken from someone sitting on the ground, several feet away from where the band practiced. In between the 'photographer' and the band was little Ada Minkus, standing and watching her mother and the rest of the band. Her face couldn't be seen, but there was a definite sense of curiosity and awe about her.

"I need to put this one on a wall somewhere or something," Maya hummed, looking at the picture again.

They were out at Zay and Nadine's house by the looks of it. They couldn't very well have practiced at the Hex, not today. Knowing that they were all out there right now, doing… whatever they would be doing tomorrow, for her, for Lucas, it settled in her chest like the embrace of many arms. Of course they would be up there, just as she and the others had been two years ago, when Nadine had been the one getting married. It was still just a bit weird for her not to be there, not to know, wasn't it?

"Is that another one there?" Missy pointed to something she could just see. Lucas and Maya both looked, and the way Lucas approached said it all. Unlike the previous, this one needed a little help for real. Kai held number three now, pulling him out of the way. "It's still stuck in its thing…" Missy looked on as Lucas went and carefully attended to the puppy under Coraline's watchful eyes. It wasn't more than half a minute, but it felt like so much longer to everyone as they watched. For Lucas, it brought back memories of some of those births he had witnessed, but almost more so of Peanut, so small and frail when he'd been found. Now he was grown and lively as ever, over with Rosa and Riley and Dylan, but in the beginning…

"There he goes…" Maya breathed, saying what they would all be thinking, as the fourth pup was set before its mother again, now moving and giving squeaky little cries. Coraline sniffed at once, seeing to the newest of her litter. Lucas sat back now, taking a few breaths of his own. "You alright there?" Maya asked him, smiling. It was hard not to, now that the small bit of concern had passed.

"Wasn't sure I had him for a second there," he admitted. Maya knew how much it would affect him, when he'd been present at a birth where some of the puppies didn't survive. Even though he knew it was something that happened, it still uneasily in him. So far, today, they were only notching in the win column, and he wanted to keep it that way.

After the room had calmed again, Joanne Sanderson had come along with lunch for everyone, recommending that they went ahead and ate up while they could, before the next pup came along. Missy and Kai carefully moved the trio from the girl's lap, bringing them close to their mother again, and to their new sister, bringing that additional warmth. The two friends started to discuss potential names as they ate their lunch.

"Hey, look who's at practice," Maya extended her phone to Lucas again as he came back from washing his hands and picked up his plate. There was the same picture as before, only she'd zoomed in on one part she hadn't noticed before. Just on the edge of the picture, sitting next to Farkle, was a short black girl watching the practice with him, and Dylan, and Zay, and who knew who else wasn't near enough to be captured in the photo.

"Is that Jenna?" Lucas asked. He had yet to meet the girl, though he had heard plenty in the last week and a half, as the 'mystery' trickled down from band level to common knowledge among the group.

"About ninety-nine percent sure, yeah," Maya smiled.

As much as she and the rest of the band had been seeing so much more of each other in the past year, after having been shaken just a bit loose in their first year back in Austin, it had managed to slip by completely unnoticed among any of them, even those who went to school with her, or lived with her, that Rosa had this new friend. It had been less noticed that this new friend was making her feel things she had never felt in her life. There had always been this sort of… indescribable awareness of who she was and what she did or did not want. It was like she'd always had the map of herself inside her, and she could navigate it with ease, but then words had started to appear, and she'd tried to stick some of them on to the map, found them to fit. There was little else for her to do, and then she'd carried on with her life, with her words. And then… Jenna had happened. She'd come along, and suddenly some of the words didn't seem as right as they used to, like they had been mistranslated.

Jenna did go to the same university as Rosa did, the same as Dylan, and Sam, but she did not share classes with any one of them. She worked in the library though, and while Rosa had been mildly aware of her in the first year – new translation: she had noticed her, and she continued to notice her whenever she went to the library to do research or study or work on an assignment – but it wasn't until the second year that they'd first spoken to one another. Rosa had been so focused on what she was doing that she hadn't realized they were about to close for the night, not until someone had tapped her on the shoulder and told her as much. When she'd turned around, there was that girl she'd seen a bunch of times – new translation: stared at just a few seconds more than regular whenever she saw her.

They'd quietly gotten caught up in conversation as Rosa had gathered her things and made her way out of the library. And the next time she'd been at the library, they'd said hello in passing, just as they did the time after that, and the time after that… It was always nice to see her – new translation: she looked forward to seeing her, maybe went to the library even though she would have been perfectly fine working from home – and the feeling appeared to be mutual. Hellos had turned to conversations, and conversations had become 'I'm about to go on my lunch break, you want to come?' This had gone on for several months, until March, before Rosa had finally been left to consider the very unforeseeable conclusion that she might actually like this girl, that she might have feelings for her that were above 'I want us to be friends forever' and below 'I want to get naked with you.' That line remained an immutable barrier. So what was there in between?

She had been trying to figure it all out for herself ever since she'd started to wonder, and she hadn't told anyone, no, of course she hadn't, wouldn't, not until she knew what this was, except… Well, there had been the show, and she'd invited Jenna, and afterward she'd come to find her, and they'd been seen, and so Rosa had unloaded the whole tale, making it very clear without saying as much that she wanted zero intervention from any of them. They respected her wishes on this, standing by until such a time as the rules would change. For now at least nothing had changed. Much as she had considered inviting her to come along to the wedding tomorrow, she had finally changed her mind. It would have been too much, too soon. At least she'd opened the door enough that she'd invited her to this practice. That was a start.

"I think there's another one coming," Kai spoke up, shortly after the empty plates had been put aside, and the four of them moved in to quickly pull the puppies out of the way, one to each of them before settling them back on Missy's extended legs, pinning her to the spot. After the uncertainty of the last one, they were reasonably tense as they awaited the next new arrival. But when this one came it felt very much like how the first two had gone, not a problem at all. They allowed themselves that breath of relief, as Coraline went ahead and saw to her fifth, which would soon be revealed as the second male.

"Look at you," Lucas chuckled, watching the little one wiggle under his mother's tongue. "You were eager to get your turn, weren't you?" In the weeks to follow, whenever they would see the puppies, Lucas swore he could always pick out number five, always the most energetic one.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners