December 25th 2020

Chapter 360
Their Moment of Flight

For Start Tour – Day 0 – Departure day

"So... When we get there, it'll be like... five in the morning tomorrow for us, but it'll be almost the next day already for everyone else?" Cara asked as they drove into Houston, on their way to the Blake house.

"About ten at night if we don't run into any delays," Lucas confirmed, looking to Maya as she drove. He could just see her eye threatening to twitch, recalling the 'time zone headache they'd given themselves when they'd worked out that bit of math.

"So, we'll have been in the air for the better part of a day, and then we'll arrive in Australia, and just go to sleep when we're meant to wake up? Or... yeah?" Cara asked, frowning as she tried to make sure what she'd said made sense.

"It might be rough at first, but we'll adjust. The first show isn't until the next night after we arrive," Lucas reminded her.

"So we can go around and see places while we're there?"

"Probably. Don't know how much," Lucas turned a look to Maya.

She was all for taking in as much as she could of the sights, but she was also left to think about keeping herself rested and ready for the tours, for Ree and the audiences, and for the baby's sake, too. So it might well be that the rest of them would do more as far as visiting, while she slept, but she had known this going in, and she had made it very clear to him that he should go out there with the girls, looking after them rather than sit and guard Sleeping Beauty. It wasn't as though she wouldn't go anywhere, no, but for now they couldn't predict what their time would look like, so they had to wait and see.

Arriving at the Blake house, they found the last of their group sitting outside with her suitcases and her bag by her side, her father and her brother as well. As soon as she spotted the minivan, she was on her feet and starting to cart her suitcases to the curb, her father helping while her brother stood by. Lucas got out and loaded everything in the back while Shae said her farewells to her father with a big hug and a second helping of it after managing an awkward one with her brother, who mostly stood and let her put her arms around him.

"Hi!" Shae climbed into the back, and she and Cara both moved to share a giddy sort of hug. They'd met before, at Maya and Lucas' wedding in particular, though they hadn't really interacted very much if at all. Once it had become that the two of them would be heading on this tour together, they had started calling and writing one another, forging enough of a friendship that it was now a wonderfully big thing that they got to meet in person.

"Are we really going to get to Australia tomorrow night?" Shae asked as they drove on to the airport. Lucas stifled a laugh over the return of Maya's math headache, while she responded by turning the radio on.

Ree and her team would already be in Melbourne by now, while the four of them were to fly out and complete the group on a private flight which was to swiftly get them to destination. It would still be three quarters of a day spent in the air or in an airport waiting to get back in the air, so the whole thing felt like they were removing themselves from the world for a whole day, before landing in tour mode.

"Your great aunt is meeting us before show number two?" Lucas asked Maya as they finally boarded their first plane and settled down. Cara and Shae were exploring their surroundings in excited whispers.

"Yeah, she said she's been telling everyone in Brisbane about the show and how I was her brother's granddaughter. I think she might have actually meant every single person..." Maya hummed, picturing sweet Georgie whizzing about like the giant she was, spreading the good news.

"I can believe that," Lucas chuckled.

"Wait until she hears about her," Maya smiled pointing to her belly with both index fingers.

Lunch was served shortly after they took off, and it wasn't long after this that Maya went ahead and took a nap, the better to try and ease herself into the time shift. The vast majority of their journey to Melbourne would involve Lucas watching a movie as she slept, only to catch motion out of the corner of his eye and look to find that she was awake again and quietly watching the movie, still sort of curled up in her reclined seat. Then, sooner or later, she'd drift off again. The only times she pulled her seat up again and stayed awake in earnest was when they were about to land on either flight, or when they boarded the second, and when they were served dinner.

They spent two hours in Germany, waiting for their second flight, which was what they'd expected, so they were right on schedule there. And then it was off on the back half of their trip, though for how significantly longer this flight was, it could almost feel as though the first one had not counted. Maya had been the only one to sleep that time, but now as they flew toward Australia and the day really got to weigh on them, the rest of them sooner or later dozed off as well.

"Hey, wake up," Maya went ahead and gave her husband, sister, and young friend a shake to wake them. "We're landing, we're here."

They were a groggy mess compared to her, and it took a few seconds before they understood what she was telling them, but then they looked out the windows, and they could see how they were approaching the ground, approaching, and finally landing with minimal impact, rolling and at last stopping.

"Let's go, For Starters."

X

For Start Tour, Day 4 – Traveling day, Australia to New Zealand

There was no mistaking that they had been at this for several days now, that they had been hopping from city to city in the day while in the evening Ree and Maya would take the stage. And for all that, it felt impossible that they should already be at this point, with three shows behind them and their second country to visit ahead of them. It was a very short trip, compared to the one they'd taken upon leaving home, but they slept through most of it, Maya especially, the better to take in their next destination for the rest of this show free day. The next two weeks were going to look a lot like this, with one traveling day, and one show day, alternating again and again, until they'd have their next back-to-back show nights with their stint in Japan.

Australia had been one of only two instances in the whole tour where they'd be doing three show nights back to back. It was also one of the countries they would spend the most time in over the tour, along with Canada and the US. As Ree would tell it, this had been one of the countries where she'd really broken out first, back when she'd started her career in her teens. So, naturally, she always made a point to return as often as she could, as she continued to find a great following here. She'd even been a coach on a TV singing competition here some years ago, before Christina was born.

The first show had been the most nerve-wracking one to get through, as was to be expected. But then, whether they were in Texas or Australia, a stage was a stage, and it could do its magic anywhere, especially with the energy that the Melbourne crowd gave them. Between that, and the rousing introduction given to her by Ree, and the knowledge that Lucas, Cara, and Shae were out there somewhere, Maya only had to take a breath, and go out there, and the rest would fall into place. She had known, for some time now, how much of her heart really belonged in a classroom, enough that she never felt the draw to make the stage the thing she did for a living, but that didn't have to mean that when she was up here she wouldn't feel right at home.

Early the next morning, they'd flown out to Brisbane, with the second show looming ahead. Still, the little group out of Texas was able to briefly entertain guests, in the form of Toph and Georgie White. The latter, born Georgia Clutterbucket, easily had one of the best reactions upon seeing her niece's daughter come to find her in the hotel lobby, so visibly pregnant when she hadn't even known there was any baby at all until this very moment. Next to Ree's reaction on being reunited with her songwriter friend and getting an eyeful of that belly, it was hard to top great aunt Georgie, who was simply beside herself with giddiness in the most amusing way.

"You're not going to get tired of seeing the same show over and over, forty times?" Maya asked Lucas, that morning as they packed up for their next flight. They hadn't been in the hotel room all that long, and still packing remained something they were cautious to do without rushing, ensuring they wouldn't lose something along the way and then have no idea in which of a handful of countries or two they might have last seen it.

"Are you going to get tired of giving the same show over and over, forty times?" he'd asked back, and she could only smile, knowing he would gladly go out there, wherever they ended up, and watch her go out there with Ree. "Anyway, I've got a project of my own," he informed her, receiving a look of intrigue. "Come here, look," he laughed, taking out his phone and showing her the pictures he'd taken.

There were the few he'd already taken, transferred from her camera, with her standing in Melbourne, and Brisbane, and Sydney, with her Marianne Friar was here! Sign. There was a small Australian flag sticker in the corner, an addition provided by Cara and Shae, when they'd gone exploring a gift shop on the first day, and their project might well have been to provide new flags with each country they went to next. For Lucas though, it involved his phone's camera, and a card-sized version of the bigger sign, which he'd then hold in frame as he took a picture of each of the stages so far.

"Yeah, you were, weren't you," Maya beamed, looking down at herself, even as Lucas set his hand over her belly. "Hard to tell if she's just spooked by the noise, or she likes the music, but I feel her when I'm out there… more than any other time so far. I think she actually kicked last night, right before encores. Right about here," she reached to move his hand.

"Wait…" he told her, pausing, eyes widening. "Did you feel something just now?"

"Yeah," Maya laughed. "Wait, did you?"

"I think so, I…" Now he laughed, too. He'd definitely felt it this time.

Flying off to Auckland now, if ever Maya would feel something, she'd let the others know, and they would take turns in feeling for those movements, Lucas here, Cara there, and Shae, too… It was really the first time where she regretted the fact that they weren't home right now, where their family and friends could have experienced this along with them. At least they weren't along. There was their little group of For Starters, and Ree, and Christina, and rest of the tour crew. At their now customary tour dinner, post arrival, many of them would get their turn at feeling for Marianne's latest flips and kicks.

X

For Start Tour, Day 9 – Show 6 – Mumbai, India

Even back on that first show night, Maya remembered distinctly this instant of being on that stage back in Melbourne and just having this very specific memory in the back of her mind. She remembered… the night she'd met Riley Matthews, and her family, after she'd crawled up through her window. They'd been children, both of them, and she'd been several months older than Riley, yes, but still they'd been little girls, the pair of them. The whole thing was a little strange, but not so much that they saw anything weird about it.

Of course, when Riley's parents had found this random child in their home, it had been a different matter, and they had asked her to give them her parents' number so they could call them and tell them where she was, that she was safe. Maya hadn't wanted to relinquish this information so easily, but she'd done it in the end. While they'd waited for Katy to come along, she'd gotten her first look through the Matthews' apartment, and she'd felt for the first time how different her life was by comparison. Even when her mother had come along, still fully locked in panic mode for the realization that she'd ended up all the way out there, Maya had been left to notice the difference, between her one parent and Riley's mother and father.

The memory had followed her, at each rehearsal, when she'd first get to walk one of those stages, and then right before she walked out there again at the actual show, and she felt she knew what the memory was there for. It reminded her of where she'd started, and where she'd ended up, but also it just sort of kept her grounded, and grateful. She had made it out here, when there had been a time where she could hardly see anything good coming her way and not being taken from her. So long as she continued to feel that way, before every show, she knew she would be okay.

And now, to be standing here, backstage, waiting for the moment to join Ree on stage… There was the memory again, and she let it wash over her, one hand holding her microphone, the other low at her belly. Would that little girl ever believe that she'd end up here, waiting to go out on a stage in India of all places, that she would have been on a stage in Indonesia just two nights before?

Just this morning, waking up back in their hotel room, she had to get up, and go look out the window, to take it all in. There was so much more than what she could see right here, she knew, and she would hardly get to see a lot of it, but all she could think about in that moment was that she had never believed she'd get a fraction of a mile anywhere close to this… and here she was, here they all were. Marianne Friar was here! She smiled, running her hand over the curve of her belly. Miss Marianne was really making the most of her night life, moving around and waking her mother a few times along the way, sometimes her father, too.

As promised, she'd been keeping everyone back home up to date on how they were doing, mother and daughter both. Dr. Jill kept a close eye, all the way, and both Maya and Lucas were so thankful to have her around. She understood their circumstances, and she always had a very reassuring and happy tone about her, all the while showing that she knew what she was doing, and that if there ever was need for Maya to do anything different, or if there was anything wrong with the baby, she would tell them at once.

In return, they would get messages from their friends and family members, and those were more precious than could ever be put to words, especially as they continued their hop along the itinerary line. It was still so wild to think how, just one week from now, they would have been to three more countries, even as they flew off to a fourth. And another week from now… By that time, they knew, Katy and Shawn would be making their way to Los Angeles, and the little Hunters would be put in the hands of their maternal grandparents. That was the part Maya had been dreading the most, thinking of how she'd be here, so far from brother and sisters, when they were already going to be dealing with their mother and father leaving, too. When that happened, the distance would feel so, so much bigger, even as it would be shrinking away with almost every new country hop.

Not now… She couldn't think about this now. She breathed, and she smiled, feeling Marianne kick, just near enough to her hand like she might have been aiming for it. She waited for Ree to give her introduction, and then out she went, letting the energy of the hundreds and hundreds of people out there just wash back over her and set her on her way to giving them the best night she could. She would sit on her stool, officially dubbed the Mama Seat, though she wouldn't necessarily stay on it as long as she'd be on stage. By the end of the tour, she'd probably find the ratio of standing to sitting to have shifted, but for now this worked very well.

She didn't know why she'd done it, the first night, but since then, along with the repeated memory, another thing she would do at every show's start, without fail, was that she'd head out there, and before she'd even started singing that first song, there'd be her hand at her side, making the signs for the letters T, X, N, and Y against her hip. They couldn't see it, they would probably never know it if she didn't tell them about it, but it was important to her that she did it every time, like she'd brought them with her. She would never have ended up here without them.

X

For Start Tour, Day 10 – Traveling day, India to the Philippines

"You look excited about this one," Lucas remarked, looking to Shae in her seat. Maya was already asleep in the one next to him. She'd had trouble sleeping the night before, and she'd boarded the plane already giving eyes like she was just waiting to be seated and able to doze off. She'd become a very skilled traveling sleeper. Shae on the other hand, and Cara as well, looked eager to land, to reach their destination more so than to be off of the plane itself.

"I am, yes," Shae confirmed with a quick nod. "One of my friends at school, she's from the Philippines. Her family moved out to Texas when she was a year old. I go to her house a lot, and I'll eat with her family, and they do a lot of food from back there." By the way Cara was smiling, Shae had probably been hyping it up to her for a while already.

"So does that mean you'll be leading the way for dinner tonight?" They looked up to find that Ree had been listening in, from where she sat. Even though they had stopped being so startled around her, as they had been in the beginning, Shae and Cara could still be caught unawares and be surprised by having her address them so casually. Put on the spot now, Shae looked unsure of what to say at first. "We already have reservations, but I believe you can find a site and see the menu."

This got the girls occupied at once, bent to Shae's phone screen as the research began. Lucas shared a smirk with Ree, as she nodded over to the sleeping Maya.

"Little one kept her awake last night?" she asked, and Lucas looked back to his wife before turning a tip of the head to the singer.

"A bit of that, but the show, too, I think. The ones with the band, she is just hopping when she gets off stage. This is different, but it's still in her." Ree gave a knowing smile, as much for one part as for the other.

"You know, you could start another picture series with your sign there… The airplane series," Ree suggested with a barely contained laugh.

"Somehow, I don't see that one ending well," Lucas responded in kind as he imagined the look on Maya's face if she learned he'd taken pictures of her while she slept, in whatever position she'd found to be comfortable in her plane seat. As far as he was concerned, he only thought her as beautiful as ever, but he wasn't going to argue with her on this.

"Are we there yet?" Maya hummed, when Lucas woke her up.

"About to land, yeah," he confirmed. Her barely-awake smile was quite literally one of his favorite things in the world, and this one was top grade, all the way. "Sleep helped?"

"Sleep helped, dream helped," Maya nodded, pulling herself back in a more upright position.

"What did you dream about?" Lucas inquired. Maya hesitated, looking around their seats, to Shae and Cara now watching a movie, to Ree further up, talking with her husband while her daughter sat between them, also with a movie. "Is it one of those 'I don't think I should say,'" Lucas imitated her 'innocent' face, which had her snickering.

"Might have been…" she replicated the face, the original, showing she was still the best at it.

"Then definitely tell me about it later," Lucas laughed.

As they got off the plane, he caught her up on Shae's excitement for their stop in the Philippines, and the 'challenge' Ree had extended to her mid-flight. From what he had caught out of the intrepid duo, a site had been found for the restaurant, and a menu as well, and though she did not know every single thing on there, Shae was confident enough to pick out a few things she definitely wanted them to try.

The tour dinner that night was easily the best they'd had so far, for the food as much as the company. The fact that they had been seeing each other every day for going on two weeks now had helped tremendously in forging a spirit like family between them all, and it was easy to see why, when they were all they had of familiarity as they moved along on this sort of whirlwind tour of theirs.

"Turning in early tonight?" Lucas asked as they walked back into the hotel.

"Yeah, definitely," Maya breathed. "I don't know about you, but I'd like to get through at least one flight where I'm awake, and not just going to sleep in one country and waking up in another."

"Right, so, what we need is a good movie, lots of action," Lucas nodded. "Maybe one of those where you just sort of…" he imitated her, when they'd be watching something and she'd get frustrated by some detail or another and worked overtime to keep from launching into some tirade or another.

"I don't…" she attempted some mock insult, to little success. "I get that you're trying to keep me awake, but maybe we can do that without having me watch something that will just get me super frustrated?" she laughed.

"Right, so no Titanic then," Lucas smirked, more so at the eye twitch it gave her, like she might have been having the 'they could have fit on the door' argument all over again.

"Definitely not that one, no."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners