July 12th 2020

Chapter 194
Their Circle Around Time

With the celebration for GiGi now passed, many of them ended up in the way Maya and Lucas did, the morning after. Asher and Ray were to be married in a matter of days, and while they had freely given of their time in order to help the Babineaux family say goodbye to one of their own, they now had to turn things around, to switch gears. After spending days on the funeral, they now had to give the days to come on to last preparations for the wedding, up in Houston, but not one of them could reasonably be at the funeral one day and then leap into wedding mode the next. So, as they had been leaving the gathering the night before, Asher and Ray had told their friends they would all take a day off, to breathe and regroup, before getting on to that end run, if it was alright with all of them.

For Maya and Lucas, the day became about three things. The first was to finally empty out their luggage, all their bags, after having been back for nearly a week. They hadn't left them untouched all this time, no. They'd reclaimed some clothing items here and there, started to sort out various gifts and souvenirs… When Rosa had spotted the DVDs, she'd burst out laughing. As she told it, the concept for the show had been sold in a handful of countries, and she had seen the Italian version, when she had been learning her father's language.

"Where are you going to put all of these?" Sam asked, when Maya showed him all the posters she'd brought back from Paris. It made her smirk to see how he was absently keeping hold of one in particular. She'd bough that one with him in mind.

"Well, that one can go in your room…" she nodded to it, and her brother grinned at once, looking at the thing like he was already trying to figure out the size so he could then get a frame. "I was thinking we could put one in the basement, not sure which one yet… Not that one," she pulled one away in the next moment. "I kind of want to put it in my classroom," she admitted with a smile.

"You should," Sam nodded.

"We'll see what Rosa thinks when she gets back. Speaking of which…" she moved into the hall, giving out the old basketball call. It was returned a second later. "Are you coming with us?" she turned back to Sam.

"It's okay, I'll stick around here, get those posters flattened up a bit, maybe start on laundry," he told her. "The baskets are overflowing."

"Yeah, well, you know, two whole weeks…" she pointed out, moving in for a quick hug and a thank you before moving to join Lucas as they headed out of the house and up the lane to the Sanderson farm.

Coraline's puppies were three weeks old now, coming on four. Though they had checked in with Missy, who understood why they couldn't visit just yet upon their return, they had not seen the puppies since the day they were born. All Maya and Lucas knew was that all nine puppies were alive and thriving, growing as any pups should.

When they were let in by Missy's grandmother, even as they answered her questions about their honeymoon, they could hear a cacophony of sharp little barks coming from what had to be the basement. Following the sound, they started down the stairs to find one of the small dogs with his or her front paws perched on the bottom step, looking back up at them. Lucas smiled all at once, recognizing the active number five of the litter.

"Hey there…" he went down to meet him. The dog watched him come with open curiosity, his tail wagging as he tried to hoist himself up closer. "I'm coming, I'm coming," Lucas promised. Picking up the small dog, it was wonderful to see how much he had grown in just this short time. He wasn't huge, and he would never be, but compared to the little thing they'd seen on the night the litter was born, it was impossible not to see it. The puppy may not have remembered the last time he'd seen Lucas or Maya, but they remembered him, and the happy spirit he showed here as well.

"That one's Crowley," Missy reported, and they looked over to where she was stepping over a gate installed a doorway. On the other side, they could see a couple of the other puppies attempting to go and see who was there. "I don't know how he keeps getting out."

"Who's a good escape artist?" Maya beamed, reaching to pat the dog's head.

Bringing little Crowley into the other room, they got to see the rest of the litter, as well as mother Coraline, who appeared in complete control of… most of the situation, going by the one escapee. There really was nothing like seeing a whole bunch of puppies in one place, all of them doing their thing, sleeping, or eating, or messing around with one of the others, or exploring the room, or rolling around, playing with one of the toys… When they saw the people, it was like a signal went off, and then there was a mess of little barking faces at the gate.

"Make way, come on," Missy worked to nudge them back so they could climb in. "I tried to open the gate once, just to get in, and then it was puppies everywhere," she revealed.

"Doesn't feel like a bad thing," Maya beamed, barely in the room and already with a number of postulants for arm holding. To look at them and to recognize them from the day they'd been born was really the best thing they could have asked for, maybe on even footing with getting to hold them. "So you did stay with the naming idea, huh?"

"Yeah," Missy smiled. "I know we might not keep them all, and if they get taken by other people they might get a different name, but I wasn't going to leave them nameless until we decide. So I have…" she looked around at the puppies, pointing out each one in the order of their births. "Una," she nodded to the firstborn. "And then that's Lupescu," she nodded to the one laid out in Maya's lap. "He's Shadow, and then she's called Door," she went on to three and four, who vaguely recognized their names already.

"Door?" Lucas repeated.

"Lady Door, if you please," Missy nodded. "You already met Crowley," she indicated the one who now perched to Lucas' knee as he'd done the bottom step. "That one there is Bod," she indicated the one quietly sitting by his mother.

"Short for Nobody," Maya smiled.

"Yes," Missy smiled back. "And then… there's Charlie," she added, after locating the one hidden behind her. "Not calling him Fat Charlie, he's a tiny pup. And then this one, she's Zorya, and the very last is called Liza."

"Nicely done," Maya told their young neighbor.

"So you haven't decided what you'll do with them then?" Lucas asked Missy.

"Not yet, no," Missy shook her head. "I wish I could keep them all, I think I could do it, but I know my parents and my grandparents don't exactly want to have ten dogs in the house on top of everything else. I don't want to separate them, they're family."

There was little they could do to resolve Missy's issue, especially as Maya received a text to let her and Lucas know that Rosa was back.

"Hey, want to help us do some painting?" Lucas asked.

One quick change later, the three of them were headed back to the house, where they found Sam and Rosa waiting out on the porch. There were many options of what they might do with this day, but when it came down to it, after the unpacking and the visit with the puppies, the biggest thing they wanted to get done was the basement guest room. The sooner it was done, Rosa wouldn't have to sleep on the couch anymore, and she could have herself a bit more of a homey place to stay until she got things settled.

She needed to get the last of her things out of the old apartment. She didn't have to. Dylan and Riley were still there and would be for a little while longer until they found their house and were able to move in, but Rosa wanted to just get going already, and much as they would have wanted to convince her to stay with them until she'd found a new apartment, they understood why she'd gone; it was really just her way of dealing with things. She'd told them that this was her allowing them to get a head start on living together, just the two of them, which was not exactly a lie either.

"We brought a recruit, oh Great Decorator," Maya intoned, smirking at the amused look on her friend and bandmate's face. "Observe, she has long arms, excellent in extending paint rollers…" she thus continued. Missy bit back a laugh before giving a demonstration.

"Excellent, step into my lair, let's make magic," Rosa declared in her best posh decorator vibe.

Maya and Lucas had left the whole thing up to their friend, though she had still consulted them on any preferences, and any things they would not want to see. Her instincts had been pretty good, good enough that there really hadn't been cause for them to categorically turn down any of her choices. In due time, they had gotten the walls painted, the five of them together. They wouldn't get to finish it all today, not while everything had to dry properly, but they could still put together the furniture so long as they kept away from the walls.

"Is it weird if I want to put my own sheets on here while I'm sleeping here?" Rosa asked as she worked with Maya and Lucas to assemble the frame, as Sam and Missy put together a dresser.

"No, of course not," Lucas told her. "Kind of figured you would want it, I mean I still remember how specific you were with that back in Houston."

"Yeah," Rosa bit back a laugh. Sometimes those memories of Houston would come back around, and more often than not they would be good ones, great ones… some of the best. Rosa and her bedding issues fell somewhere in the category of hijinks and bonding moments.

"We could go and get your mattress, put it on here instead," Maya added.

"And miss the chance to break in a brand new one?" Rosa shook her head.

By the end of the night, after Missy had gone back home, they sort of had something like a room. The furniture was not placed exactly where it would go, and nothing that had to go on the walls had made it yet, but already it was hard to look at the space and recall what it had looked like when the instruments had been here, or even when it had been empty earlier that day.

"Maybe we should have taken things easy today, with how busy the next few days are going to be…" Maya pointed out as the remaining four looked around.

"No, this was good, wasn't it?" Sam looked to the others.

"It was," Rosa put her vote in.

"Really good," Lucas agreed. Something about expanding on their home's layout felt like exactly the thing to do, as they passed from one ruling emotion toward another, from parting with a loved one, to seeing two more begin a new chapter in their lives together.

"The posters!" Sam blurted out, remembering. Maya gasped, turning to Rosa and hurrying her out of the basement.

"Come on, you need to help decide which one will go down here."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners