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

September 16th 2020

Chapter 260
Their Help to Return

The day Maya picked up her siblings from school, knowing their parents would be waiting for them at her house, she played it cool. They didn't know Katy and Shawn were back, not today. They were under the impression they would be returning from LA the next day, which had not so much been their parents and sister's intention, except at one point the misinformation had folded itself into reality, and instead of correcting it, they had let it carry on, because… Well, surprises were always fun, weren't they? This one would be no exception.

The Hunter kids were in a stellar spirit that day. When they had taken off from the school, buckled into Sparkles the minivan, Nellie had demanded 'songs,' and Maya had turned on the radio. And when a song would come on, whether they knew the words or not – which was generally the case – they would bop along to the music, amusing their big sister in the driver's seat. The big miracle came when one of TXNY's songs rolled on through the speakers. The twins absolutely knew every word, and MJ knew them, too, and Haley knew some bits, which she made sure to share, the loudest of all. Maya almost had to pull the car over, the better to enjoy the show.

If they hadn't all been in such a particularly giddy mood by the time they arrived at the house, they might have noticed to other vehicle already parked out front instead of just hopping down from the minivan, still chatting along, and heading up for the house the way they did. Nellie produced her key, with the pride of a kid in possession of a shiny new house key, and opened the door for them and let it swing open, only for herself and her twin to stop, surprised, at the sight of their mother and father standing from the couch where they'd been waiting.

With a squeal, the girls had bolted for their parents as though connected at the hip, reaching them as one and tossing their arms around whichever parent they reached first. If they were speechless in their joy for this reunion, they were not alone. Katy and Shawn had never been away from their kids for so long, and as much as some people might have called it a nice break, they did not see any time away from their son and daughters as something to look forward to. Now that they were back with them, it felt as though they had been incomplete for the past two weeks, and the pieces were finally falling back into place, filling the gaps.

"Did they get taller? They feel taller," Shawn told his wife, bare subterfuge to cover up the swell of emotions as he hugged his young daughter, halfway lifting her up off her feet as he kissed the crown of her head. He had not even seen her face before she'd landed in his arms, but he knew just by the way she held him that this was Gracie. He barely had time to set her back down that he looked up and saw his one and only son, standing there, mouth agape and shocked into immobility which was broken the moment they made eye contact. "Hey, little man," Shawn felt that tremor regain him, as MJ rocketed over and found himself pulled up in his father's arms even as Gracie still held on. He hung on so tight, Shawn might have complained that he was almost choking him if he actually minded it.

Maya wished she could have seen it all. By the time she'd gotten Haley from her car seat and carried her and the abandoned school bags up from the minivan, she came upon this mass hug already in progress. Of course, the moment the youngest Hunter saw this, she was raring to go. Maya barely managed to carry her the short distance until she could be passed into their mother's arms for how much she moved, and then she was clamped on to Katy like a little monkey, while she held Haley as though she hadn't seen her youngest child in years.

It was a simple reminder to Maya of the days when she still lived at home, when not seeing her parents for days on end might have felt so weird. But then she hadn't lived with her mother and father in nearly seven years already, and by now not seeing them for a while was just the norm. Sure, they would text or talk almost every day, but it was something completely different than what those four kids and their parents were living now. They were still in that stage of their lives, and it made her miss it as much as she ever could.

Once they had managed to release one another – barely, as the younger two didn't wander very far from their parents just yet – they had gone and sat on the couch and the floor. The kids wanted to hear about everything their parents had been doing in LA. They'd heard some of it whenever they'd have calls together, though for the most part it had been brief. Now, they were due the whole story, though both Katy and Shawn agreed that they should wait until everyone was there, at dinner. So, to hold them off until then, they broke out some of the souvenirs they'd brought back, which was a very satisfactory substitute. MJ was especially thrilled for the sampling he got of his mother's promised star items.

Seeing him with them now, Maya knew that she'd soon need to bring them all to reality again. She was going to have to tell her parents about what had been happening with their son at school these past two weeks. The thought sat like something rotten in the pit of her stomach, and she barely managed to keep it from rising to her face. There was a plan for how they would handle this, she and Lucas and Sam had discussed it the night before, and it wouldn't be put in motion until the two of them were back.

Sam arrived first, about a half hour after Maya and the kids had come home, and Lucas arrived about forty minutes after that. By then, they had all been thinking about dinner, and Maya had already sown the seeds of a plan to go and pick up something from a restaurant and bringing it back here. When Sam had arrived, he'd done his part, saying he would go and do the pick up and asking the kids if they wanted to come with him so they could pick out a dessert together. The kids were not aware of this plan, but they could be counted on, when presented with this offer from Sam, to give hearty agreement. All they had to wait for was Lucas' arrival.

He'd barely made it through the door that the kids were starting to look to Sam like 'can we go now?' They had all taken a moment to figure out what they wanted to eat, and then Sam had ushered the four Hunter kids out the door, turning a look back to his sister and her husband. Maya nodded to him, eternally grateful as she could only ever be. Much as they had been able to let the kids believe that this was all a natural event, this small look had not been lost on Katy and Shawn, who now looked as though they sensed something was amiss.

"Maya?" Shawn asked his daughter as she turned back to him, her smile faltering.

"We need to talk," she told him and Katy, gesturing for them to follow into the kitchen. Here they sat, the four of them. Lucas had left it up to his wife, whether she wanted to talk to her parents alone or not, but as far as she was concerned, he was as much a part of this conversation as she was. He had been here with her, with the kids, in the thick of it for these past weeks, and he deserved to be part of the conversation. And so he was.

She had to start it, naturally, and that was not easy, but they were on borrowed time already, and it just needed to happen. So she explained it from the start, from the day she'd gone to pick up the kids, that very first day when Katy and Shawn had flown off to California. She told them about how MJ had been upset, not for their departure but for an incident with best friend Mikey. And with about as much ceremony as a revelation like this could afford, she told them what Ms. Sara had told her. Still, she couldn't say the word, and none of them did say it, not once, but it didn't take long for it to be conveyed unspoken on to the startled parents.

This was the thing about MJ. Maybe he was, or at least maybe it was a part of who he was. They'd all been there, they'd all watched him grow, and maybe there were instances where they were left to wonder. But then he was just six years old, and even though they didn't deny that he could already know, consciously or not, they didn't want to rush him. No matter what it all came down to, he would be loved, and he would be accepted, and all they could do as he figured himself out was to be there for him, and to show him these things were true, so that if it did turn out that he was gay, or bi, or anything… he would feel confident in sharing it with them.

But in the meanwhile, as they existed with this… intuition… they had also been cultivating something of dread, because they knew the world would not react as they might, and something like what had happened with Mikey and Reed Winger might happen to MJ. And now here they were. None of them had ever expected it to turn out this way, none of them believed it could come this soon, but it had, and now they had to look into what came next.

Katy looked caught halfway between fury and sorrow. Shawn was giving both Maya and Lucas a flashback to those days and weeks following the car accident where they had been injured – it had been believed – because of Lucas' inattention. They had seen that look in his eyes directed at Lucas, when his daughter had been harmed, and now it was here again, for a word that could pack as much of a punch, directed at his son. Neither parent ever asked why they hadn't been informed earlier. It didn't feel important, and by the time they might possibly ask themselves the question, the answer would be clear.

"We explained to him what it meant, when he wanted to know," Lucas told Katy and Shawn. The memory of that night, and the dawning of realization on the boy's face could only echo on both his and Maya's faces in that moment, which told the parents what they needed to know on how that had gone. "The next day at school, he shared his new knowledge with Mikey. It didn't exactly fix everything, but then the day after that Mikey's mom called and asked if we could bring him home with us. He stayed for dinner and she picked him up after that."

"We've been talking almost every day," Maya added. "She and her husband have been talking with Reed, trying to get to the bottom of this. For the time being, we all agreed that it would be best if MJ and Mikey didn't hang out at the Winger house, only yours, but we're hoping to change that." Looking back at her parents, it almost felt as though she was sitting in the middle of a parent-teacher conference, and it would be one of those times where her adulthood really felt as though it stood out.

"He looked… okay, earlier," Katy breathed, after a beat of silence.

"He is," Lucas assured her, while Maya nodded along. "It definitely helped, once he and Mikey started talking again."

"And he's good with sharing," Maya added. "When you guys get around to discussing this with him, he should be open to it." Her parents looked to her, to Lucas, with so much gratitude in this moment, as though they were coming to the realization that, much as MJ had been dealing with this situation all this time, the two of them had been dealing with it, too, and doing a fine job of it.

By the time Sam and the kids returned 'triumphant,' the four left behind had gotten just enough time to clear the air of any heaviness. Whatever would or wouldn't be said about the incident with MJ, it would not happen here and now, as they all settled to the table for dinner. Katy happily launched into the story of her time on set, knowing it would hold her children enthralled from start to finish. Maya and Lucas could just about see the seem of her mask here, focusing on the good even as the bad lay fresh under the surface. It would be some time before her episodes – two of them back to back – would be on television, and she could hardly give them anything actually plot related, but that was in no way a problem. Between costumes, and hair, and makeup, and other actors, and LA, she had material for days, and Shawn would have plenty of his own to weave along with it, all the better to keep their kids good and captivated. It was the best day they'd all had together in such a long time.

In the end, Katy and Shawn had gone on home and left the kids to spend one last night at their sister's house, keeping the relocation for the following afternoon after school. Maya and Lucas could barely express their gladness for this extra night. They'd become so set in this way, of bath time and bed time, of stories and a tiny girl lying between them, of a crowded table at breakfast… It was like a promise for the future, brought to the present, and the thought of returning it to the future was not one they looked forward to. But then at the same time it was a good thing, wasn't it? It reaffirmed what they had long dreamed for their future, and it also reminded them that it wasn't nearly as far away as it had once been. Just months from now, that was what they held on to, as tightly as Haley Hunter held on to her big sister as she slept.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners