October 27th 2020

Chapter 301
Their Spooking of Chances

The added benefit of a middle of the week Halloween party was of course that they could count on their guests clearing away earlier rather than later. Oh, they could have partied well into the night if they had been able to, but it wasn't a bad thing for the noise and the press of costumed bodies to dwindle and dwindle until there were none but those of them who lived here… and even then, they were going to be minus one of those tonight.

"I can help with the clean up," Sam told Lucas and Maya.

"Don't worry about it," Lucas told him, giving a thankful nod.

"But…" Sam started again before being cut off by his sister. Maya had pulled him into a hug. "Reminding me you love me again?" Sam asked, sounding nervous, possibly recalling their earlier conversation.

"I really, really do," Maya hummed, pulling back to smile at him.

"Yeah?" He still looked nervous.

"If I didn't love you, I'd let you stay here tonight," she teased him, knowing it would immediately make him cringe at the thought she'd suggested into being. "You earned that one, dude," Maya shook her head, laughing.

"I guess I did," Sam conceded.

"So, where are you headed?" Lucas asked him as he returned from grabbing his bags.

"Going to crash at Josiah and Deanna's," he informed them. "I was going to stay at Dora's place, but we both agreed that maybe it wouldn't be the best idea, not if we want to really figure out… where we're going with… all that," he gestured toward the stairs, unable to keep from looking a bit pink in the cheeks.

"Yeah, good idea," Maya smirked. Alright, maybe she was a tiny bit relieved. "And you're coming back…"

"Uh, day after tomorrow," Sam told her, checking with Lucas and getting a nod. "Thursday, yeah."

"Text us when you get here," Maya hugged him one more time, giving one good squeeze and a kiss on the cheek before releasing him.

"I will," he promised. "Are you even going to check though?" he asked, allowing himself a joking smirk.

"He's getting way too comfortable about this," Lucas intoned curiously, slipping back into his wicked prince persona.

"You're right," Maya followed his lead. "Maybe we should add a little detail of…"

"Okay, good night!" Sam waved his hand at them at once, cutting her off. "Happy anniversary!" he told them, heading out the door to the chorus of his sister's giggles and the dogs' barking.

"What would you have told him?" Lucas wondered, wrapping his arms around her from behind. Maya grinned, leaning to him.

"Oh, nothing at all, I knew he'd go before I got to," she promised, turning around to face him. "And now look at that, it's just the two of us." That look in her eyes, now there was no margin for error in what it suggested. Lucas looked back at her, and he was so on the same page, he was on the very same line, the very same word…

"It's not midnight yet," he pointed out, smiling. "It's still October."

"It's November in a lot of places out there," she countered, pulling him deeper and deeper into her web. "And, the way I see it, with what we're trying to do, I think it's very important that we give it all we've got and get started as soon as we can, don't you?"

"Now that you mention it…"

"Also, you've got school in the morning, and I'm working, and like I said, it's just you… and me… and who's going to tell us off for breaking our own rule by thirty-seven minutes?" she asked, her voice growing fainter by the word, as he looked at her with so much heat in his eyes that she might have been melting. When he leaned in to kiss her, she was already rising on her toes to meet him halfway, the better to happily join the flame.

So intent into the kiss as she was, Maya barely took notice of Lucas lifting her into his arms except to hold on tight as he brought them both up the stairs. How they made it without a single stumble or without unlocking their lips from one another's, they could not say. All that mattered was that he got them up to the second floor, good as blind, turning left when he reached their room and managing to shut the door before any of the dogs could think to follow them in.

Maya's shoes were allowed to drop off her feet, falling with a thunk to the ground even as she reached between them to untie the cloak from around Lucas' neck and then found and undid a few buttons down his shirt. He found the zipper on her dress, pulled it down as far as it went before bringing her to the bed, setting her down and only breaking the kiss so as to look at her a moment before carrying on. As they both worked to regain some of the breath in their lungs, they only had eyes for each other, loving gazes lifted with smiles.

Neither of them was under the impression that they would miraculously conceive this child on the first try, but that wasn't what mattered right now. Anyway, the timing wasn't exactly right for it to even happen, and still… What did matter was that they were starting, that after waiting and dreaming for what felt like a really long time, they were taking that leap. Six years ago tonight, they had stared at four tests and found them all negative, and it had been the first time they really thought of that future, their future, with a family. They could not say if they would have fared as well as they had done by now if they'd had their first child way back then, and they would not lose themselves into thinking of what ifs and never weres. Right here and now, they had never been more ready.

"I love you so much…" Lucas breathed. Maya beamed, holding his face in her hands.

"I love you so very much…" she echoed, as he turned his head to kiss at her palm, trailing his way up her arm, her shoulder, until he landed at her throat and climbed his way up her chin and back to her lips. "We really need to get rid of these wigs," she added, when they pulled back again, and they laughed.

X

"What are you thinking?" Lucas asked, breathing as deep as his lungs permitted as he laid back at his wife's side. He was just bordering on dizziness right about now, but in a really good way, a great, fantastic way.

"Many… many things, lots… and none of them decent…" Maya reported, doing a bit of breath catching herself, pulling her hair into something like order, especially where it had come to stick to her face. "But I think you knew that, yeah?" she asked, blindly nudging at his arm.

"Message received," he confirmed, making her chuckle before turning on to her side, the better to drop her head at his shoulder as he pulled her closer. "Hey, look at that," Lucas smiled as he happened to get a glimpse of the clock on his side of the bed. Maya turned her eyes up and saw, as he'd seen, that it was after midnight.

"When did that happen?" she made a surprised sound.

"Do you know what, I wasn't paying attention to the clock," Lucas pointed out.

"No?" Maya shook her head, grinning, as she stretched up to kiss him.

"No," Lucas responded in kind, and for a little while the world grew distant again, in every part that did not include the two of them. "Hate to even bring it up, but if we keep going like this, we'll be dead on our feet tomorrow… or in a few hours," he corrected, nodding to the clock.

"But very happy about it," Maya smirked, pressing a few kisses to his chest she knew would challenge his resolve. It definitely did that, and it was a fierce battle to put in another argument in the favor of sleep.

"What about tomorrow night though?" he asked, and after a beat of silence he heard a sigh before she lifted her head again and planted her chin.

"I could just take a nap in the afternoon," she suggested almost pitifully.

"You could. But I know you won't."

"You do, huh?" Maya asked, and he nodded. "Okay, tell me why then," she challenged.

"Because as much as you're going to think about tomorrow night, and our Date, you're also going to want to be there for your students, and you won't be any good to them if you're exhausted."

"Touché," she smiled, and now it was him who held her face in the palm of his hand.

For as long as they had been waiting for this chapter in their lives to begin, right then he couldn't help but look her and think… This was going to be the mother of his children. This beautiful woman with an impossibly kind heart… It was such a faraway dream before, and now it was… still a dream, so long as they had to wait before there was actually a baby on the way, but it could never have felt nearly as real as it did now, nearly as tangible. And even without her saying a word, he knew she was thinking it, too, about him, as he would be the father to her children.

Another year had come and gone, and every time they found themselves here, on the bridge between Halloween and the first of November, they could only feel how their love had yet to encounter a boundary strong enough to keep it from growing.

Sleep came and collected them soon enough, still locked into one another's arms rather than their customary spoon, and as the alarm pulled them back into the waking world a few brief hours later, they felt so at peace that moving felt cruel. Maya would just confine herself to his hold, making herself as small as she could, as though to compel him to do everything in his power never to let her go.

"You're giving a very strong argument there, Mrs. Friar," Lucas breathed, feeling her nod into his shoulder. "But your kids…"

"But our kid," she countered.

"Does not exist yet," he kissed the top of her head, for lack of access to any part of her face as it hid beneath a spray of golden hair.

"But it could… if we tried real hard."

"I can promise to do all that tonight… and then some." He caught a first glimpse of blue eyes at this, as though they asked 'what's this 'then some' you speak of?' "Tonight," he promised, and she sighed, relenting.

"I swear, if I didn't know you were such a man of your word," she shook her head.

"There has to be a reason you named me Huckleberry, right?" he laughed.

"Yeah, that was definitely up there in the why," Maya agreed, smiling back at him.

"Go on and get your shower," Lucas nodded out toward the door. "I'll get started on breakfast."

"Oh, right, we kicked out our chef for the night," she reached to her night stand and picked up her phone, confirming that Sam had texted her the night before upon arriving at the Schmidt twins' apartment. She chuckled to herself, thinking how he'd called her not seeing it when he sent it. He wouldn't be here tonight either, of course. "Hey, hey, what are you doing?" Maya called as she turned to find Lucas had climbed out of bed and now had pants on as he worked to pull a shirt on. He paused, peering at her with that innocent look, as though it was little more than a mask. When he tossed her the shirt and turned to head downstairs, she laughed. Yeah, that was definitely more like it. It was their anniversary…

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners