December 1st 2020

Chapter 336
Their Story of Truth

Now

"And that's it," Maya breathed, sitting back down on the couch.

"I really appreciated the visual aid there," Lucas wagged his finger to where she'd been standing a moment ago, which made her laugh before tipping her head as though bowing at the end of a show.

Now that they were both caught up, they just sat there for a few beats, looking at one another. It felt a lot like a staring contest in the way neither of them was able to keep a straight face. Finally, she snorted, resting her head at his chest as he laughed along with her and put his arms around her. There was no way for this night to feel anything but completely surreal and to fill their limbs with the urge to move rather than sit still. The story had been shared now, but this only allowed all the questions and the 'what now?' to filter back in, so combined with this urge for motion, it resolved in wanting desperately to do something to do with the pregnancy, to pick up some information of some kind…

"So, now that I actually know that this is real, and this is why all the last few days have been the way they've been, I think maybe I should bow out early for the night, get some extra sleep," Maya finally sighed, a plan to which Lucas leant his full support. "Shower first, then bed," she decided as she headed up the stairs.

Once she was gone, Lucas just sort of sat there at first, unsure what to do next… or first… Hearing the shower start upstairs, he went into the kitchen, put away the leftovers from their dinner. He went up into the attic then, having had a notion that the bundle was still in that drawer. He picked it all up for the first time, and he didn't know that he'd ever been happier to hold anything like this, which sounded funny when considering precisely what he held. But he brought them back down to his and Maya's room, committing the sticks and the towel to a small box with a lid, glad to find they fit. Maya had a few of these in the closet, stating how she couldn't part ways with a perfectly good box when it came along. This one had been a loose tea set she'd received from Mr. Brett the science teacher last Christmas. He set this box on Maya's nightstand, so she might do with it as she chose. Personally, he felt oddly attached to the idea of holding on to these.

Before long, Maya was out of the shower, and soon she was crawling into bed, settling in contentedly. Lucas came and kissed her goodnight, and by the amused smirk on her face, he guessed his face must have still carried a trace of a smile as he looked at her.

He'd just left her and climbed back down the stairs when Sam came home from his study group. It was a wonder that Lucas didn't immediately lose the battle with The Big Secret by smiling too broadly as he saw that his brother was here.

"Hey, how was it tonight?" he asked instead.

"Fine," Sam shrugged. If nothing else, the tone in his response, suggesting it had been anything but fine gave Lucas a way to speak to him without giving away the news that Sam was going to be an uncle.

"Hey, how was it tonight?" Lucas repeated himself, a tactic he borrowed from his grandmother, Susannah Friar. He must have done it right, as Sam looked at him and gave the more proper response.

"Half the group never showed up, and most of the ones who did were either not really participating, or they were so far behind that we had to stop and catch them up all the time. After a while, me and Josiah and Deanna went off on our own, but we really didn't get that much done, so now I'm going to have to stay up super late or get up early tomorrow, just so I can get to where I wanted to be after this," Sam finished, dropping his bag on the couch before going toward the kitchen for a snack.

"With the way you're feeling right now, option two might be for the best," Lucas offered, following behind.

"Yeah, probably," Sam agreed. He paused, looking up from the open fridge door. "Where's Maya?"

"Sleeping," Lucas replied, indicating upstairs. Sam checked the time at this, like he thought it might have been a bit early. "Long day," Lucas told him, and this was accepted.

"Guess I'll go, too, after this, better to get an early start tomorrow."

Lucas and Sam sat at the table while the latter ate his snack and the former spoke of his day at the university. It felt practically ridiculous to completely sidestep what had happened when he came home, when it made the whole of his day before that feel like the most insignificant thing in the world, bad stains and good laughs with friends included. But they had already agreed not to tell Sam about the baby yet, to let him figure things out on his own, which meant a bit of sidestepping the topic right now.

After Sam had gone up to his room to go to bed, Lucas had been left alone, and while it was still just a bit early for him to go, he finally decided to cut his losses and join his wife. All he'd achieve if he stayed up right now would be to jump down a hole of internet research, and the potential there was that he'd never get to sleep at all and pay the price in the morning. This was more than alright in the end though, going to bed when he did. He got to lay there at Maya's side, big spoon as ever. When he put his arm around her, she leaned to him in her sleep, and his hand came to graze about her belly button, and when this happened, it made him smile, thinking of how, somewhere inside there, their still tiny, tiny child was going to grow, and grow. In a way, that night, they were a big spoon, a little spoon, and an even littler spoon, and that was the thought that carried him off to sleep.

When he woke again in the morning, he found Maya had turned in his arms in her sleep. After near on a decade of sleeping next to her, he'd come to know that this tended to happen either on nights when she'd been very tired or nights when she had trouble falling or staying asleep. Factoring in their current situation, it could have been any one of those things, which really made him unwilling to wake her. Going by the fact that the alarm clock wasn't yet sounding, he found his problem solved. He didn't have to wake her yet, and so he wouldn't.

He did have the presence of mind to carefully get an eye at the time and, when it was a minute to the alarm, he reached out his arm and turned it off before it could ring. Turning back around, he found blue eyes staring back at him.

"I was going to give you the gentle waking up instead of the noisy beeping one," Lucas told her, settling back in the hold.

"Does that mean we're even then?" Maya mumbled. He laughed lightly before pressing a kiss to her forehead. She responded by holding on nearer.

"Are we just staying here today?" Lucas smiled.

"We created life, maybe we earned it," she suggested.

"Won't see me arguing with that…" he nodded, even though he knew very well that they would get up and get on with their respective days.

They headed down the stairs to find Sam right where Lucas had expected to find him, sitting at the kitchen table, surrounded with books and his computer. He lifted his head upon hearing them come in.

"Sorry, I didn't start on breakfast yet, I can go now," he moved to stand, but was made to sit back down by his sister.

"It's alright, I got it," she patted his shoulder and moved to start the coffee. Even as she did this, Lucas could spot the moment where her thoughts aligned to 'wait, no, I probably shouldn't' and then 'well, I already started it, so we'll just have to work around it somehow.' If Sam had been looking anywhere else than at his textbook, the mystery might have been ended right then and there. Instead, Maya moved around the kitchen with renewed energy, possibly boosted by the happiness she lived since the previous night, and Lucas watched her go.

The extra/undesired cup of coffee was sacrificed on the promise of a better solution the next day. For now, it was simply and unfortunately forgotten where it sat, left to go cold and be thrown out after Maya realized she'd completely left it untouched as she ate and spoke of Helena Zimmerman and her plans for opening up potential doors for her. She got Sam to stop reading and actually enjoy his food by showing him the video she'd made of the friendly game a couple days back.

When they all split off for their respective days at school and work, Lucas spent the whole drive to university attempting to remedy what felt like a very important need. After he'd pulled up into the school lot, he grabbed his phone and put in a search on his store's app for pregnancy books. There was the standard, he knew, but he really felt like he needed to go broader, to be informed as much as possible.

Alright, maybe he was putting a bit too much into this. Between this and the day before, how wired he'd been, he really needed to pull himself together, he knew. He probably would, once he'd had more time to process it all. Right now… Right now, it was all still so new, and it was so far from anything he had ever experienced or could be expected to know about. The breadth of his knowledge on pregnancy and birth didn't exactly have to do with humans at this point, did it? And this baby… their baby… The thought that it even existed at all had taken all of seconds to activate something in him, and as weird as it might be to feel this much for a creature so very, very small… All he seemed able to think about right now was 'how can I help to make sure it comes into the world as it should?'

Today was going to be a nightmare, not telling anyone, when his brain was on overload and he wasn't supposed to tell, so the thoughts just kept bouncing off the inside of his skull like a ball.

Maya: Is anyone able to read over your shoulder right now?

He'd just been about to climb out of his car when the text came in, and he smiled, settling back in.

Lucas: No. Why?

Maya: Just figured I should check on you there, Pops.

Lucas: Any chance that's not locked in?

Maya: We have months to figure it out. I just figured I'd start testing them out.

Lucas: Do I get to test out yours, too? Any preferences?

Maya: Well you need to cut out Ma right now, that's just half my name right there.

Lucas: Ok, but what about Mama? That's three quarters of it now.

Maya: Like I said, we got months… Papa?

Lucas: Better already.

Lucas: I think we need to stop there for now or everyone will wonder why I'm smiling like this.

Maya: Show, don't tell.

He snapped a picture of his face in that moment and sent it to her. All he could think now was how one day he could show this to their son or daughter and say 'this is the day after I found out you were coming, and I was already so excited to meet you.'

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners