June 26th 2020

Chapter 178
Their Joy in Vows

"Ready to go?"

Lucas turned to see Zay had returned from going to check and see whether the guests were all seated, to see if the time had come for him to head out there. This was it… Breathe.

"Yeah," Lucas replied, after taking one last look in the mirror. "Yeah," he nodded, taking a couple more deep breaths. His heart was not settling. The way it was going, it felt as though it had grown very intent on dragging him out there if he wouldn't go on his own.

They were headed into what was said to be a scorcher of a fourth of July weekend, but the heat had not come yet. The sun wasn't too intense, the breeze was nice… he could hear birds in the sky, and voices as they made their way to where the guests had been gathered, the chairs set up on either side of the aisle created to lead the bride and groom to stand underneath the tall and impressive tree where, many moons ago, Thomas Friar and Melinda Sullivan had been engaged. String lights in the branches turned the place into something kind of magical, and that was just what they needed for this moment.

"How long before…" Lucas turned to Zay, who in turn looked across the space to where he spotted Nadine. She held up her hand.

"Three minutes," Zay told Lucas, who felt like another log had been tossed on to the flame in his chest. "Hey, man, relax," Zay clapped his shoulder.

"No, I know, I'm fine, I just need it to be three minutes from now already."

He didn't have to worry on that front. He had plenty of people there to make the time go by, just for being seen. The number of guests was definitely something to hold his attention. It was one thing to see a number on paper, but to actually have them all sitting there in one place… There were most of the bridesmaids and groomsmen standing at the back, like a wall to block his view up to the very last moment. It bordered on ridiculous, just how many of them there were, but that vast number in and of itself felt important. They were friends, brothers, sisters, cousins… They had come into their lives at one point or another and had been essential to both Maya and him. They had earned their place here on this day, and there were still others who might have been there with them.

Already, they had one more than they might have done if they'd been married a year ago. Willow had been meant to sit out bridesmaid duty, having just given birth to son Liam not two months before their intended wedding date. Now, the boy was a year old and had been left home with his grandparents. Now they were just short a couple people. Riley would be with Maya, Nadine was just folding herself into the line after telling something to Sophie, who went and headed toward wherever Nadine had just come from… and on the other side, they were only missing Sam… Lucas wasn't sure where he'd gotten off to.

"What's going on?" Lucas wondered, frowning, as Sophie returned a moment later and went to speak to Cecilia among the bridesmaids.

"No idea," Zay told him. "Want me to go see?" Before he had the time to go, Cecilia had switched positions in the line, moving to the end, while Sophie had gone to the side of the groomsmen, speaking to Farkle and Asher, who'd been standing with a gap in between, and then the gap was made the close, the line moving along one space over, closing what had been meant to be Sam's spot. When this was done, even as Maya's mother and stepparents could be seen coming up to take their seats, Sophie had returned to the other side, catching Lucas and Zay's eyes and giving them thumbs up followed by a single finger. All good, one minute.

"Where's Sam?" Lucas signed out to Sophie.

"On his way, don't worry about it," Sophie smiled as she signed back and went to stand between Chiara and Rosa.

"Hey, man, isn't that Ree Forster?" Zay quietly tapped Lucas' arm. "Right there, behind the Weaver Kings girls?"

Lucas barely acknowledged the question. He let out a breath, eyes turning to where his parents sat, next to his grandparents. His mother, as was to be expected, was barely keeping it together and already had tissues at the ready. When she saw him looking at her, she motioned for him to come toward her and he quickly went. She stood from her chair, embracing him without a word. Lucas returned the gesture, happily expressing his sentiments with the press of arms and little more. As she pulled back and sat again, Pappy Joe took the chance to tap his grandson's arm, smiling up at him. Lucas tipped his head to him before hurrying back to position.

"Feeling good?" Mr. Matthews asked as he came up to stand under the tree, facing the gathered guests in wait of the bride's entrance.

"Buzzing," Lucas nodded.

"Just remember to…"

"Breathe, I know. I'm doing my best," he smiled, standing to attention now when he heard the strike of music. She was coming… It was starting…

Just minutes before, even as the groom was left to deal with the infinity of three whole minutes, the bride was left to the same sort of conundrum.

She had finally been able to trade one hiding place for another, as she moved in wait of the moment where she'd emerge for her walk to the altar. She could barely stand still anymore, and it was hard to decide if this was comical or unnerving. Riley was there with her, doing her very best to ease those feelings, to calm her enough to go on her way. Sam was giving last minute reminders to the flower girls and ring bearers Wyatt and MJ. All that was left now, before she would go out there were her parents. She'd wanted to see them, just before, which felt like bait to make herself cry, but it didn't stop her wanting it. None of them had seen her yet, not like this.

When the door opened behind her, she turned around, and there they were, a quartet of awed faces. As was to be expected, each of their reactions reflected much of the length and the depth of their relationships. James Lane had become her stepfather through no bond of blood whatsoever, but it had not stopped him from seeing her as a daughter, and it hadn't stopped Maya from seeing him as a parent. Abigail had had space in her heart for her first husband's first child even before she'd known her, and it had only grown with the years. Maya could not imagine not having her stepmother in her life any more than she could think of not being close to her father anymore.

And then Shawn… He would say that she'd been his surprise, that she'd just sort of happened to him, turned him into a father without his expecting it, and she could just feel it, whenever he would look at her with so much emotion as to believe he had been there with her from day one. Today, seeing her as he was about to walk her down the aisle, he looked like he'd had the wind knocked out of him.

Her mother… oh, her mother… Katy looked like she'd known before walking in here that she'd be crying as soon as she saw her daughter standing there, and she'd been right. She'd come forward now, her hands landing on Maya's arms, her shoulders, her cheeks… How many roads had the two of them travelled side by side, from the first time she'd held her baby girl in her arms in New York, to this day in Texas?

"Cutting it close for touch ups," Maya laughed, voice trembling under the weight of tears, and Katy laughed back, inspecting her face.

"You're alright, you're good," she nodded. "Everyone's ready, just waiting for you."

"Did you see Lucas? How's he doing out there?"

"About the same as you're doing," Katy revealed with a smirk, which helped Maya pull herself together again.

"Figured," she chuckled.

"We should go and find our seats," Abigail came up to quickly hug her stepdaughter, her face marked with a few tears of her own. When she turned to look at Sam, still standing there instead of being among the groomsmen, the door opened again and admitted Sophie.

"We are missing a… you, we are missing you," she motioned for Sam to follow her.

"No, he's staying here," Maya told her and her parents. "I want him to go, with me and Dad," she turned a look to Shawn. "For Kermit." As surprised as they were, for all of a second or two, there was no argument of any kind. Both Abigail and Katy looked touched by the small tribute to the man who had been such a large part of both their lives, regardless of how it had all ended. James, having never met his stepchildren's father, admired this nonetheless, while Shawn turned a nod to his partner in giving her away.

"Right, on it," wedding planner Sophie had dashed back out.

"And that's about to be our cue, we should really go now," Katy breathed, hugging her daughter once more, as Abigail and James both did the same and followed her, leaving only the kids, and Sam, and Riley, and Shawn, and Maya.

"Is it too late to take a lap around the building?" she asked her father.

"You say the word and I'll cover for you," Shawn promised, which made her smirk, especially as she could see how he was barely holding himself from crying.

"Come on, Hunter, keep it together," she nodded at him.

"Not a chance, sorry," he laughed, wiping at his eyes. "This whole father of the bride thing is a lot."

"You just hold on to my arm when we go out there, you'll be fine," she counseled, feeling herself taken with the need for deep breathing.

"Come on, Hart, keep it together," he echoed her words now, catching the new tears trying to ruin her makeup. Maya wrapped her arms around him, and he hugged her back, until the sound of music from outside told them it was time to get in position. No more waiting…

"Okay, so it's me, and then the rings, the flowers, and you three," Riley stepped to the doors, as the kids fell into place and Sam moved to stand on his big sister's free side, looping his arm with her. He gave her a smile that was so like their father's. Maya leaned over to kiss his cheek, just as the doors opened and they moved out.

She was coming… It was starting…

Lucas could just barely see movement in the distance, as the two walls of bridesmaids and groomsmen had come to meet in the middle. There, the first of each line, Willow and Lion, linked arms and began down the aisle, soon followed by the next pair, and the one after that, and the one after that… As they came along the aisle, the two walls were shrinking, and shrinking away, and as they reached the front, turning a smile to the anxious groom, they moved to stand on either side again. One here, one there, one here, one there… There was hardly time for him to note that Cecilia came unaccompanied, behind Nadine and Dylan, because behind her… behind her, and little brothers and little sisters with rings and flowers…

The anticipation had been almost too much, and looking back on it later on, she would tell herself it was probably a good idea for her to have people there to walk with her on either side, or else she might have lost the ability to walk on the jelly standing in for her legs. But then… But then she saw him. She had had days before, days so long as to make her feel like she had been gone for ages, days when she was bursting with the need to see him and tell him something good that had happened. No matter the reason, there had been days where the very sight of him felt like someone had reset the counters, and she was falling in love with him all over again.

When Maya saw Lucas standing up there that day, in his new suit, hair cut, beard gone, she felt everything her thirteen-year-old heart had not known she was feeling, she felt all those increments from almost as many years, all those times where she'd been left thinking 'just when I thought I couldn't love you more,' hitting all at once. It was impossible for her to keep it together here and now, but that was alright; his eyes were as brimmed with tears as her own. Coupled to his smile, it inspired new strength in her legs, to take her up to where she might rejoin him.

When Lucas saw Maya there behind her sisters and their sweeping tosses of the petals in their baskets, surrounded by Shawn on one side and Sam on the other… He only had eyes for her. Oh how they had both teased one another over the fact that he wanted to see the dress, and she wanted him to see the dress, and now here she was, in the infamous dress, and…

He didn't know whether it was the combination of the dress and the hair and how much she seemed to be lit from within, if it was that, and the location, and the people, and the music, and the décor, all of it together… All he knew was that he saw her, the woman who had claimed his heart all those years ago, and he could feel it like he'd never felt it before. He loved her so much he could barely contain it, but then everything in him felt as though it was devoted to expand and make space to hold every bit of it. His eyes stung with tears, and he let them come. He had never felt so alive.

Riley had gone and stood at the end of the line of bridesmaids, next to Cecilia. The ring bearers were directed by their respective mothers to go stand where they had to stand, and then the flower girls along with them. Stopping at the top of the aisle, Sam hugged his sister and went to stand in the space left open next to Zay. Shawn hugged his daughter, pressed a kiss to her temple, and moved to sit next to his wife, breathing deep as Katy took his hand with a smile as tearful as his own.

Just as Shawn had let her go, Maya had turned her eyes to her fiancé, his hand extended to her. When she rested her own hand in his, Lucas felt something nestled in her palm and his smile found new depths as he realized it was his pocket watch. He clasped her hand, and the object remained in their joined grasp so long as their hands stayed together. She was back with him now, she was returning it to him.

After spending just over half a day purposefully apart, to be back with one another now, together and for this reason, it seemed impossible for either of them to stop feeling childishly giddy, as though their happiness kept bouncing off of the other's.

"Hey," he silently greeted her.

"Hi," she did the same, before looking to the side, to Mr. Matthews as they stood before him, waiting to be married.

It seemed almost funny, now that the two of them were weeks away from being co-workers. But before he'd been that, he had been a teacher to both of them, with a wide reaching influence in their journeys, and even before that, before either the Matthews or Hart families had relocated to Texas, he had been… still a teacher, briefly, but more than that, whether she'd understood it that way just yet or not, he had been the first person to come into her life after Kermit had left to hold to the position of a father figure. Never mind the fact that he and Mrs. Matthews had helped her mother buy their house, enabling them to live the life they'd had after moving to Austin, he had been someone she had needed, after her father had gone away the way he'd done.

So, when she and Lucas had been considering who might stand as the one to marry them, it had been almost too simple a leap. Of course, of course it would be him. The night they'd asked him, they had been eating over at the Hunter Hart house, the two of them and the Matthews as guests. The look on his face was only rivaled by the one on Shawn's face, at having his best friend be the one to officiate his daughter's wedding. Maya had put down a wager-less bet with Lucas as to whether the reverse might come to pass, the day Riley was the one at the altar.

"Come on, Matthews, one of us needs to keep it together," Maya whispered at him, as he looked caught up in his own whirlwind of nostalgia, looking at the both of them.

"Sorry, you're right," he whispered back. "Where were we?" he joked.

"Think real hard," Maya smiled.

"Ah, yes," he tipped his head before clearing his throat and addressing the whole of the gathered guests. "You'll have to indulge me, it's not every day you get the privilege of bringing together two people you've watched grow up from a young age as I'm about to do. I've known the bride since she was a… very adventurous six-year-old," he looked to Maya, and it was easy to tell which of the guests were aware of what he was referencing by how they quietly laughed. "She and my daughter, Riley, were inseparable from the start, even when she and her mother left New York and came here to Austin twelve years ago. Now, we ended up coming out here ourselves a year later, but we kept up with Maya and her mother in that year. How was it going, how was their new home, what was the city like, how was Maya doing in school, did she make friends? Well, it didn't take long that we started to hear about how she'd made fast friends with a group of kids at school."

Unbidden, three groomsmen and one bridesmaid hooted aloud, making the bride and groom – and much of the guests – laugh out loud.

"Detention, all of you," Cory pointed to both lines, and the interested parties played coy. "Where was I?" he turned back to the guests. "Maya's new friends, yes, well behaved, all of them." Maya and Lucas nodded to each other. Sure, let's go with that. "There was one name we kept hearing, again and again, this boy called Lucas." Looking to one another, holding hands, they felt transported to those early days, and it made them smile. "Here was this boy who, sight unseen, had been elevated into something out of a story. And as much as we got to know him as a much needed friend in a time of change, we finally met him, a year after Maya had met him, and we found there was much more to this story. It wasn't just that she'd found him when she needed him. He'd found her when he needed her, too."

Lucas took a deep breath, his thumb absently grazing the back of Maya's hand. For her part, she had to briefly bow her head to collect herself and look at him again. They could hardly hear what was being said about them for a little while, could only really be aware of one another, until Cory, who seemed to catch on to this, had discreetly touched both of their arms, calling for them to say their vows. A brief look between them made so that Lucas went first.

"I started out thinking I needed to write something down, that I would stand up here and possibly freeze, not knowing what to say to you. Now I'm here, looking at you, and I realize how silly that was. I look at you and it's all so clear to me. I love you. I have loved you from the very beginning, and you know that. There's almost nothing I could say here that you don't already know. I've always been able to be so open with you, in ways I could never be with anyone else. You and I, we've been going for so long that none of it had any meaning that we could understand, and that never made it any less real, or important. I wouldn't be half the man I am today if you weren't here with me. You let me into your heart, and when you did, I… I found this whole other way of looking at the world, full of colors, and sounds, and so much life, so much… appreciation for things I might have taken for granted.

"We were lucky, you and I. We found each other when we did, and that made it so we got to grow together, and our love got to do the same. I have known in my heart that you were the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, the one I wanted to make a family with, for more years than I can say. And it's never been something scary, or too big. It was just the truth, and it was something to strive for. Now we're here, and as much as it's felt like we've always been headed here, to know that we actually made it, I… I just feel like I don't know what I did to deserve the honor of calling you my wife, but I promise to keep doing it, whatever comes our way, for as long as there's life in me."

"Great, now I have to talk," she spoke quietly under her breath, voice quaking under tears. Lucas smiled, lifting his hand even as it remained gripped in hers, so he might carefully brush away some of the droplets escaping her eyes. "I got this," she breathed, nodding, and he lowered their hands, squeezing hers for courage.

"You're good?" he asked anyway, and she nodded, lifting her voice now so she might be heard beyond the small circle of him and her and their former teacher.

"When I came to Texas, it felt like I didn't know who I was anymore. I had left everything that made me me back in New York. It was like I was lost at sea, spinning and spinning, and I couldn't find a way to stop, to get my feet back on the ground. And then I met you, first day of school. I saw you, and somewhere in me it felt like… a light, off in the distance. There was land, and all I had to do was hold on tight and I'd get there. When I was with you, I just felt safe. I didn't know how to put it into words, and I didn't need to. All I knew was that you being in my life made it better, whether it was tossing a basketball around, or walking to school together, or just sitting on the steps outside our school, not even talking, just being in the same place, at the same time.

"I found my hope because of you. It's not something that's easy to say, to admit to yourself or to anyone else that the idea of hoping for anything to turn out well felt like a trap you'd set in your own way. But then you were there, my wonderful Huckleberry friend, my best friend in Texas, and you showed me, without trying, without doing anything except to just be yourself. I used to think I was fearless, that it was a good thing. You made me braver, and that was better. You made me hopeful. I look at the future and what it might be like, and I don't shy away from it. I know some of it will be great, and some of it will be hard, but either way I know I won't shy away from giving it everything I've got. I want to see what comes next for us, whether it's tomorrow, or a year from now, or fifty. Make it a hundred while we're at it."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners