A/N 1: Hey, almost forgot to say it before (thanks TeeChamblissful for bringing it up, sort of ;)), I am looking to do any number of deleted scenes from the wedding, over in The World Around, once I get the chance :) I couldn't get to everyone in the chapters or it would have taken ages :)

A/N 2: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available!

July 1st 2020

Chapter 183
Their Joy in Loving

The departure of Pappy Joe and Patty had only been one of the first, as some of the guests called it a night. Little by little, Lucas and Maya said good night to the grandparents, and many aunts and uncles, some cousins. Randall and Leanne the nurse were taking Nana Kat back to Dallas in the morning and were spending the night at the Hunter Hart house, where they headed ahead of Katy and Shawn, taking the sleeping kids with them so the pair might stick around a little longer. Before they could go, Nana Kat insisted on seeing her great granddaughter and her new husband, showing her more demanding side. When Maya came along, as Lucas was seeing off his uncles and their daughters, she sat with the old woman, who calmed at once at the sight of her.

"I have something for you," she gave her a smile, reaching down for a wrapped box in her lap. Her bony hands held it out to her with a bit of a tremor, and Maya joined her own hands in the exchange.

"Thank you, I… Should I open it now or later?" she asked.

"Keep it for home, I say," Nana Kat suggested, keeping hold of Maya's hand, looking at her with so much affection. "You remind me of someone, you know that?"

"I do," Maya smiled. She told her every time they saw each other, which was getting to be every other week, give or take. She also knew that this person she reminded her great grandmother of was her great grandmother herself, when she'd been young, and it sort of warmed and broke her heart at the same time. She wished deeply that she might have known the woman earlier in her life.

Shortly after seeing Nana Kat off, Maya had found herself joining Lucas in seeing off their other great grandmother for the night, the one who was not really theirs but would just as easily scold them for suggesting they were not family.

"I always wanted to see Paris," GiGi told them both as they walked along with the wheelchair pushed by Zay's aunt Susanne. "Never got to go, I never liked to fly when it was over the country, couldn't stomach an entire ocean," she explained. "You've been before, haven't you?" They confirmed that they had been, yes. "I remember the pictures, yes," GiGi smiled. "You saw it already then, so this time forget the camera, if you can. If you spend too much time worrying about preserving a moment, you won't live it. See with your eyes, look at each other with those loving eyes the way I saw you two all day. Remember together, bring back stories. They last longer."

"We will do our best," Lucas promised her, while Maya sniffed back this renewed wave of emotion.

"Thank you for the cookies," she told GiGi as they hugged. "They were a life saver earlier." And a gift of gratitude to a little brother.

"I told you they would be," GiGi laughed, pointing at Lucas, who nodded and leaned over to hug her as well.

With the first wave of departures behind them, the party had carried on for some time more, with more dancing here, and more talk there… When the next wave started, taking more and more of their guests with it, the reception had what they'd fondly refer to as 'the lightning round' before finally being officially called as being over, somewhere around two in the morning. Of all people to carry them back home, the newlyweds caught a ride with Ree Forster and her husband, Peter.

Lucas spent most of the ride with his dear wife's head on his shoulder, his arm around hers, as she looked somewhere between sleepy and serene, floating on memories of the day. When they arrived at house on the lane, there was a strong temptation to invite the couple in, to show them around, show the Hex, but it was late for all of them, and they had a daughter to get back to. So, with many thanks and the promise that Maya would call upon her return so that she and Ree might start planning for their project together, the newlyweds got out of the car and waved the couple off, turning on their heels to now face their home.

"Does it feel brand new again to you, too?" Maya asked Lucas.

"Kind of does, yeah," he smiled. "I have been away for a whole day," he reminded her.

"Give it a few hours and ditto that," she hummed, looking up at him. "You got your keys, right?"

In answer, he had swept her up into his arms, surprising her into laughter as she quickly joined her hands together around him for balance. Even with the weight of the dress, he didn't struggle one bit to get them up the stairs and to the door, which he unlocked and opened, carrying them over the threshold and into the low light of the lamp Lucas had left on, in anticipation of this moment.

"You can set me down in a second, just need to do one more thing…" she whispered even as she leaned in to kiss him.

It did sort of feel strange to be back again, after all of today, but it was a good strange in every way. Their house had not changed, it was the same house they had been living in for two years already, right down to the empty coffee cup left forgotten on the kitchen counter and the leftovers from their friends' dinner the night before in the refrigerator. It was the same place, but it also felt like it wasn't, like it had all been given a new gleam, new potential.

When Missy and her parents had gone home for the night, a couple of hours earlier, they had been kind enough to collect and bring back Maya and Lucas' things, the bags they'd brought along to get changed earlier, along with a handful of gifts they had received at the actual wedding reception. The only thing they brought back themselves was Nana Kat's gift.

"That felt good, didn't it?" Lucas smirked when he heard a thump and another and turned to find Maya happily wiggling her toes after having nudged off her shoes, leaning against the back of the couch.

"Like you wouldn't believe…" she breathed. "I think I'm going to need your help for the next bit," she pointed to the back of her dress. "My arms just… don't want to," she showed him what felt very much like an exaggeration of this 'struggle.'

"That can be arranged," he nodded, trying very hard not to just carry her off up the stairs and do more than just help her get her dress off.

"You're so good to me," Maya sighed, picking up her skirts as she started her ascent up the stairs, looking very much like a princess at a ball… or coming home from a ball. Lucas collected her shoes and followed her. Arriving in their room, he found her in the process of carefully pulling the paper flowers from the back of her head, nested atop her pinned braids. "Wasn't sure they would survive the night," Maya told him.

They had found a way to turn the folded flowers into accents which would hopefully hold through the night, and now she was happy to find they had very much remained intact. There were some spots where sweat had become a factor, but now that they were out and sitting on the dresser they would be alright.

"Check this out," Maya turned to Lucas, the look in her eyes suggesting she'd been waiting all day, and possibly months and months, to show him some aspects of her dress. Reaching down her collar, she fished out a small, thin, blue bundle. When she unfolded it, Lucas saw that it held Kermit's guitar pick on its chain. Maya never left home without it.

"So that's where it went," he smiled, lifting up the chain and helping to fasten it back around her neck. In doing so, he came around her to undo her dress. "It was really worth the wait," he told her as she stepped out of the mass of fabric, looking so much smaller all at once.

"Good things always are," she returned the smile as she reached up to release her hair.

"You alright with that?" Lucas asked, pointing to her head.

"Yes, yes," she promised, "Can you just…" Before she could ask the question, he was already taking the dress from the ground. "Just leave it on Sam's bed for tonight?"

"Right," he went, carrying the thing with enough care that she might still have been in it, which made her smirk. By the time he returned, she had finished changing, her hair left in twin braids which she now began to unravel as Lucas went and started changing, too.

"Oh!" Maya stopped all at once. Lucas turned back to find half her hair in a curly mass after being braided all day, the other half still in the process of being undone.

"What?" he asked.

"I just remembered, there's Dot's gift, in the desk, the hidden panel."

"Totally forgot about that," Lucas admitted, recalling now. They'd only found it after Dora had told them about her mother's signature, carried on from her father as he'd taught her. Possibly, Dot would have mentioned that they should have a look today, at the wedding, if her daughter hadn't given it away. "Finish your hair, I'll finish changing, then we can go look?"

It was past three in the morning as they climbed up into the attic and unlatched the wheels on Maya's desk, pulling it from the wall to get better access at the hidden panel. Maya looked on, still in the midst of taming the coils of her hair, as Lucas pressed and turned the panel until it would release and land in his hand, along with the wrapped object within.

"Got anything you want to put back in here before I close it?" he asked, looking back at her.

"What, and tell you all my secrets?" she whispered, twisting her long hair into a bun over her head.

"Oh, there's secrets I don't know about, are there?" Lucas gave her a look of curious disbelief.

"There could be…" Maya shrugged innocently, sitting on the floor with him.

"But not right now?"

"I'm too tired for secrets right now," she frowned, stretching out her arms and dropping them limply back into her lap. "Present," she pointed to the object. "You should unwrap it."

"You sure?"

"I will be less sure if it takes too long," she pointed again.

"Okay," he laughed, putting the panel back until it could not be recognized as such by anyone unaware. Taking the wrapped object, he pulled at the paper to reveal a cardboard box. When he opened he found there were four pieces within, two big ones and two little ones, individually wrapped in paper. "I think I know what this is," Lucas smiled.

"You do?"

"Yeah, you know, back at their house, on the mantle?" he explained, and she gasped, seeing them in her mind now. Lucas unwrapped the two little pieces, which would be the stands, to slide the bigger pieces on to in order to display them. On the paper covering the larger pieces, he spotted their initials marked in pencil, so he handed over the M one.

"Maybe we should unwrap them at the same time, put them side by side," Maya suggested. That was the other thing: they locked together. On the Cassidy mantle, there were five of these, one each for Dot and Emmett, and then one each for their children. They would be replaced every year or two, of course, and the 'retired' plaques were collected in a box in Dot's home workshop. Everyone grew, everyone changed…

"Right, well, let's see," Lucas felt at the edges. "I think mine goes this way, so yours…" She did as he'd done, finding her own edge and turning it to face his. "Okay," he scooted over to sit next to her. "Ready?" Maya nodded, and they unwrapped their pieces, pulling the paper back to reveal the two plaques.

"Wow…" Maya laughed, with the amazement of a fellow artist, as she took in the interlocking plaques, one for her, one for him.

In the time she had worked with her nephew, Dot Cassidy had picked up plenty of stories from him, and the more the project had come together, she'd gotten some from his then girlfriend or fiancée as well. She had known Maya for years, almost as long as she'd lived in Texas, although she had not been as present in her life then as she was now, so a lot of blanks had needed filling in.

These two plaques absolutely fit together, in more ways than how the slotted together. Each one came off as a mix between a timeline, a patchworked mural, carved in high and low relief in the wood. One told the story of a girl born in New York, who'd come to Texas with her mother and started to make a place for herself, in art, and in learning, in music and in friendship, in love. The other told of a Texas boy grown in kindness and care, for all living creatures, human or animal, with priorities so deeply rooted that they could possibly get him in trouble. But then, somewhere in the middle, the two pieces met, like two kids sitting side by side, and from them a new story emerged, complementing one another, expanding and improving each one. It showed a museum, and a basketball, dogs, a house… They were already a bit behind the times, with how long it had taken for them to be able to open the box, but it did not diminish the impact in the slightest. Working together, they assembled the four pieces until it became one.

"I really, really want to learn more woodworking now," Maya smiled, looking to the finished product.

"Where should we put it?" Lucas asked. They could just as easily remove the stands and mount them on a wall.

"I don't know," she yawned, tipping her head to rest at his shoulder. Lucas smiled looping his arm with hers, holding her hand. Looking on, she traced at the ring on his left hand. "Looks good on you," she decided.

"Yeah?" he asked, moving his hand around. Maya hummed, nodding her head. "I think so, too. And you…" he picked up her own left hand, the two rings meeting together almost as the two plagues had done, creating a whole. "I remember when my grandmother gave them to me. My grandfather was long dead, I never saw her wearing them, except on that day. I think she put them on before I came, to have them one last time. It was there on her face, everything they'd meant to her. It was important to her that I have them, that I would have those kinds of memories, too."

"I really wish I could have met her," she stated, not for the first time.

"When the right one comes along, you won't be able not to know," he recited. "That's what she told me. And she was right." Maya smiled at him, and he leaned in to kiss her. With the way they both felt magnetically pulled to one another, it only took one look exchanged between them to know what the other was thinking, and they might have ended up trailing off back to their room after leaving the attic if Maya hadn't happened to look out the window and notice a light coming from the Hex. In the middle of the night, it was unavoidable.

"The lights are on," she stalled.

"If you want to put it like that, yeah," Lucas turned back, realizing now what she'd been talking about. "Did you leave them on yesterday?"

"I wasn't in there yesterday, remember? Puppies?"

"Okay, well, maybe the day before that?"

"No, I swear," Maya shook her head. "What if… What if someone's in there?" she half whispered. Lucas came closer to the window, squinting down at the studio.

"They would have tripped the alarm," he reminded her. With the equipment they had and intended to have in there, it had been a no-brainer.

"Maybe one of the girls had to get something before today and they forgot?" Maya suggested after a moment. Clearly, she wasn't going to leave this alone until they went to see.

"Okay, come on," he led off and she followed on his heels. The sooner this was handled, the sooner they could get back on track.

Keys retrieved, they made their way down to the backdoor, leading them on to the path to the Hex. From down here, they could see something they had not seen up on the attic. A note had been stuck to the door, a card, with the kind of design easily found in the aisle reserved for weddings. In what little light they had at their disposal, they'd leaned in together to read the message inside.

In case you're wondering, the band helped make this happen. I was going to wait until later for this, but it was too hard to pass up an occasion like this. Congratulations on your wedding!

Ree

PS: I know this might be a tad one-sided, I promise to even the scales when I get the chance.

"What did she do?" Maya blinked.

"Here, you should do the honors," Lucas held out the keys.

After feeling like she had forgotten how to use keys for a second, Maya unlocked the door, reaching in on reflex to turn off the alarm before it could start to ring. It felt very much like her hand was just going on habit, as the rest of her was struck speechless for what she saw. She had always intended to get her hands on some better equipment, to record and work on her music, whether for the band or the songs she wrote via her contract. She did great with her laptop on the whole, but it had been something of a dream to push things forward, and this meant equipment, and that meant money she didn't have yet. She didn't know how long it might have taken for her to put it all together, but now she didn't have to anymore, because here it all was… courtesy of Ree Forster.

"Tell me I'm not hallucinating? It's very late, and this is just…"

"I'm seeing it, too," Lucas assured her, equally startled.

"Maybe it's a shared hallucination. Must be part of the marriage package."

"Maya…"

"This is too much, too much, I…" she turned to him, then back to the equipment, and to him again, and forward… Lucas stopped her from turning again by putting his arms around her. "I can't take it, can I?" she blinked, still in shock. "It's too much, I didn't…"

"Hey, hey," he held her tighter, kissing her head.

He knew what had to be going through her head, this notion that she hadn't earned this. They had thought many times of the ways in which the two of them had been fortunate in recent years, all of it starting with his getting this house from Pappy Joe, and then things like Patty's involvement in her life, and his job with Sullivan Stables, now this… Lucas could tell her how it had been Pappy Joe's choice to leave his house to his grandson, and the same for how his grandmother had thought of him when she'd had her will drawn up. He could tell her how she had been working so hard, for so long, at school, and at the theater, and with her music, and it was this relentless work which had gone and produced the results.

He could tell her all that, and deep down she did know it, of course she did, but right now, this right here, this was the biggest thing yet, this was her version of being handed a house. And being that she was Maya, she understood too much of who she had been to just receive this and be immediately content and ensured of her worthiness. He kind of loved her for it, just as much as he knew that one of the things he was here to do, as he'd always been, was to lead her back to where this felt okay.

"We should check it all out in the morning… or whenever we'll wake up again, yeah?" he suggested, rubbing at her arms. She was still so speechless, but she nodded, taking a beat first to step forward, let her fingers touch the console so she'd know it was really real. They were leaving for two weeks in a couple of days, so she wouldn't really get to explore it all until after the honeymoon, but it was here… It was all here…

"How is she for real?" she whispered as she followed Lucas out. The lights were shut, alarm armed, door locked. Walking back to the house, she couldn't stop looking at the card in her hands, back over her shoulder at the Hex…

Back inside, Maya and Lucas made their way up to their room, where Maya plopped down on the bed, looking at the card for a moment before setting it on her night stand, like a reminder for when she'd wake up and be a little less loopy. Nana Kat's present still sat there, not yet unwrapped. After a beat, she picked it up, almost contemplated it, in hopes of discovering what would be inside without opening it.

"Working on your X-ray vision?" Lucas asked, dropping in next to her, turned to his side.

"That would be a practical power to have, especially around you," she agreed with a small smile.

"I feel like I just walked into it again…" Lucas squinted back at her.

"You did, big time," she looked back at him, with those old heart eyes of his.

"Are you going to open it and see if it worked?" She worked to open up the paper as an answer. There was no way Nana Kat had wrapped this, but she could just imagine, for what she knew of her by now, that she'd sat by to watch the process and make sure it was done right.

The box inside was previously charged with individually wrapped tea bags, peppermint, inside, wrapped in tissue paper, was a small figurine, recognizable as being one of those her great grandmother had collected. It made Maya happier than any console.

"The Empire State Building," she turned it about in her hand. "It was the first big place she and her husband went to, on their honeymoon in New York. They went up, up, up, and he was terrified of the heights, stayed near the elevator the whole time. But not her. She said this might be one of the rare times she got to be that high and have the time to notice and she wanted to see everything."

Lucas took the little figure when it was handed to him. He thought back to the old woman wandering off on her own back at the reception. She might not have always been one hundred percent 'there' in her head, but this small token hit all the marks.

"First big place we go, when we get to Paris," he looked back to Maya, who nodded like she'd just been thinking the same thing.

"Make it a high one," she added, as the figurine was set back in the box and placed back on the nightstand, the paper left to tumble to the ground.

Turning back to look at her shiny new husband, Maya was very aware that it was coming on four in the morning by now, and a vast part of her brain was campaigning for sleep, just as his would be doing, too. And still… Still, he was looking at her now, and just like they'd been of one mind with their response to Nana Kat's gift, they were of one mind as the notion became that they weren't so tired that they had left that headspace where they had just been married, hours ago. Heads, and hearts, and whole bodies swimming with love for one another, sleep could wait for a little while longer.

"Today was everything I wanted it to be," she quietly told him, as his weight shifted closer to her, and she moved to him as well.

"I was hoping it would be," he smiled at her, bowing his head to a soft and tender kiss. "I am so happy to be able to call myself your husband, there are no words."

"I'm not looking for words right now," she reminded him, as though she even needed to. He kissed her again, and there was no talking for some time.

After having spent a night apart, through no choice of their own, Maya and Lucas were infinitely glad to find themselves in their own bed again, big spoon and little spoon together, spent, content, and drifting ever closer to sleep.

"I would pick up a pencil right now and I wouldn't put it down for hours, except I don't even think I could lift up my arm right now," Maya declared, holding her husband's hand between both of hers, playing around with his fingers.

"I could lift it for you," Lucas offered, peppering kisses at her neck and making her laugh.

"That would require us moving, and I am not up for that at all, I will have you know."

"Alright, so just use what you've got."

"What I've got… let's see…" she hummed, taking hold of his hand and turning it over, palm up. Folding in all but her index, she used this to lazily draw on her small bit of 'canvas.' "What's that?" she quizzed him.

"Didn't get that, try again?" he chuckled, attempting to see over her shoulder.

"No peeking, no, just keep doing what you were doing before," Maya nudged at his face.

"Which before would that be?" Lucas teased.

"The one I'm not too tired for now that the other one happened," she grinned to herself.

"Oh, this one?" he asked, kissing at her neck once again.

"That would be the one, yes. Alright, here goes," she started 'drawing' again, amused at the way his kisses sort of slowed, like he was trying to concentrate on what he was feeling in his palm.

"Person?" he mumbled against her skin.

"Maybe…" she let the word trail as she kept going.

"You in your dress?"

"Hold on, hold on…" Maya kept going.

"You and me on the dance floor," he gave his third attempt, and she tapped his hand.

"We have a winner, well done," she told him, caught halfway by a yawn.

"No more drawing for you," Lucas told her. "Try and get some sleep, okay?"

"Mkay…" Maya mumbled. "Hey…" she spoke after a few seconds.

"Yeah?" Lucas asked, pulled back from the brink of being eased off to sleep by the scent of her hair.

"I love you so very much, my husband," she declared, and even without seeing her face, he could just picture the dorky little smile she'd have.

"And I love you so very much, my amazing wife," he pulled her nearer, his own smile almost palpable with his face to her shoulder as it was.

"We didn't… say the weird…" her voice trailed off as she fell asleep a minute later. Lucas would not even after remembered this fleeting realization, as he'd gone to sleep all of seconds before she did.

They were both so deeply asleep, after the day they'd had, every last bit of energy in them utilized in the spirit of happiness, and love, and good times with family and friends, that if either of them dreamed, neither of them remembered by the time they woke up again, just before noon.

Whatever dreams those were, if they existed, could only be the good kind, the kind that did not pull you from sleep but maybe kept you there, so comfortable as leaving your body no reason whatsoever to change a thing. Maybe it was just that they had been really, really tired, and no matter what they did their bodies would have commanded them to this restorative pause. They would choose to believe that nothing could have come in the way of this pause between them, and so nothing did.

Today, once they finally got up, they would get to take the day with ease, more ease than they'd ended up getting on the day before their wedding. They would double check that they had everything ready for their flight off to their honeymoon, two days later, though none of this before they had a chance to go back to the Hex and have a look at the equipment gifted on to them by Ree Forster. It was going to be little more than a tease, and after a while they would just have to leave the studio, or else they would have fallen way too deep into the potential of it all. They would think about what would happen if any of the band came out here while they were gone, having no idea what they would find, and they decided not to tell anyone, the better to preserve the surprise.

Tomorrow, they would go and celebrate the fourth of July along with 'the third of Haley,' as Maya would call it, and find it to be something like a going away party for them as they prepared to leave for two weeks, and just the morning after that, they would leave for the airport, leaving their house in the trusted hands of Rosa Del Vecchio.

But, for now, they slept on, happy and at peace.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners