December 26th 2020

Chapter 361
Their Moment of Connection

For Start Tour – Day 15 – Show 9 – Seoul, South Korea

Maya's thumb kept bending to touch the place on her ring finger, the emptiness still feeling too strange. The rings weren't gone, they were on chain around her neck, with her father's guitar pick, but it felt wrong somehow. And what if she lost them? What if the chain broke? She'd had no choice, her fingers were starting to swell, and it started her thinking about what would happen if she couldn't get the rings off anymore, and they had to cut them off… Marianne Sullivan's rings… Marianne the first… So, the decision had been made. To make her feel better, Lucas had taken it upon himself to do the transfer for her, promising also to slip them back on her finger when she was able to wear them again.

The way I'm going, I'm going to have to do something about these shoes, too, she thought as she waited for her cue to head on stage. Her toes were getting to feel tight in there, the whole foot, really, and her feet didn't even need that kind of help to be painful these days. Suffice it to say that she had been making more notable use of the Mama Seat on their last show, back in Singapore, and after this one… She'd definitely need to get larger shoes.

These were little more than minor inconveniences, and if she could only chase them away, stop them from acting like dark clouds overhead, everything else was just a special kind of perfect, wasn't it?

Earlier that day, after breakfast, she had gotten on a Skype call with the Hunters back in Austin, first and foremost with Haley. She had hoped to have her surprise extra birthday present reach her in time, and though she'd just barely missed it, her sister clearly did not care. She had the fuzzy plush kangaroo grasped in her arms and her smile said she already loved it very, very much.

"You're going to hug him for me, yeah?" she'd asked her, and Haley had nodded at once, demonstrating the hug before stating that the kangaroo was a girl. "You're right, my mistake," Maya had laughed, feeling a new rush of regret for not being able to hold her sister herself, to have missed her fifth birthday.

Sure, they had done an early thing for her, and for the twins in August. There, it was almost worse, as the tour would be in Los Angeles on that day, and unless she could get away from set for a few days, so would Katy. They were trying to work things out so they could get them all up there for a few days if she couldn't go, so either they would all be there for the day, the little Hunters, their parents, and their big sister, or Maya and Lucas and the tour would pass by right when all of her family would be back in Texas without her, as her sunny sister and her mouse-mouse would turn 'double digits,' as they insisted on saying it.

They'd done their early parties, just in case, yes, but right now, she was so far from all of them, and she wished she wasn't. If she couldn't be with them though, she had to admit, seeing Haley hug her kangaroo and looking so happy about it, then… then she could be alright, more than alright.

And if she needed more, then she could think about sound check, earlier that day. Everyone was good about letting Lucas and the girls hang around for those, and maybe for having seen them observe the proceedings so intently over the past two weeks, Ree had called over to Cara and Shae, asking if they wanted to come up and 'give it a whirl.' They'd given her that same sort of deer-in-headlights look they'd had when she'd mentioned the tour dinner on the plane to the Philippines, even as both Maya and Lucas gave them looks of encouragement. As much as they clearly wanted to go, it had taken a minute or so more before they finally climbed up on the stage and were handed a pair of microphones. After a brief whispered discussion over what they might sing, they'd nodded to one another, and they'd started, Cara first, and then Shae, and then both of them together. As soon as they'd recognized the song, the band had gone ahead and picked up their instruments, played to back them up.

Lucas had recorded the whole thing, naturally, for the girls to have it for memory, for proof, as much as for their respective families, and Maya… Even now, as she stood backstage that night, she could hear them in her head, and it made her heart feel light, bright. They harmonized very well, had been heard every now and then over the past two weeks, but on their own, oh… Shae was only getting better every day. She had the kind of voice you couldn't help but think 'this girl is going to make a name for herself one day.' And Cara… She might have started to look like their aunt Luna a bit more as she'd grown, but she was still very much looked like a younger version of Maya, and to see her singing on that stage, it was like her resemblance course-corrected itself and favored her all over again.

Right then, the solution to the 'problem' of what to do for TXNY in the months to come had become not a problem at all, at least… provided that everyone was on board. Maya had already thought that Morgan might be talked into taking the spot vacated by Kayla, but as to her own spot, temporarily vacated as she'd be readying to welcome her daughter and then as she and Lucas looked after their newborn child, well… What if she got Cara to sub in for her?

X

For Start Tour, Day 16 – Traveling day, South Korea to Japan

Lucas set his phone face down on the tray in front of him, focusing back on the movie. Maya was asleep in the seat next to him. Her hand would run along her belly now and again, and he wondered if she was dreaming about the baby, maybe having the dream they shared, the girl on the horse…

Catching something out of the corner of his eye, Lucas turned his head to find Shae was waving her arm at him from across the aisle and pointing to her ear. He pulled out his earbud and gave her a nod. She wanted to talk to him?

"Why do you keep checking your phone?" she asked. Cara was also sleeping, in the next seat over, and from the looks of it Shae had not found any movie to interest her by herself, and her book was not doing much either, so the next option was to spy on Lucas. He had looked at his phone a few times in the last five minutes or so, but he couldn't tell her why, in case Cara wasn't as asleep as she looked.

"Does it ever happen to you where you want to look something up on the internet but when you go to do it, you can't remember what it is?" he asked Shae, and she nodded as though to say 'only all the time.' "I figure at some point it'll come back to me. So far, nothing."

"Oh, okay…" she sighed. What was she going to do to keep herself occupied now?

The thing he had really been looking for finally materialized about twenty minutes later, and he smiled to himself, looking to his sleeping wife. The only reason it was coming to him instead of her was in case she ended up sleeping, just as she was now. She'd told him to wake her up when she heard back, and if it wasn't that they were supposed to land in a half-hour tops, he might have left her to sleep on. Instead, he very carefully nudged her and spoke to her until she opened her eyes, and situated herself, and finally looked back at him.

"They're waiting for us at the airport," Lucas signed, and her smile disappeared into a yawn before she managed to sit herself back up.

It had always been their hope, whether or not the girls would have been with them, that they could have some of their people fly out to meet them in some place or another on the tour, hopefully somewhere they would be for a few days, or that they could follow them, when the distances were shorter. The first of those windows was happening now, as they were set to stay three nights in Japan, two in one city and one in another. They had worked this one out weeks ago… without letting Cara in on it.

They landed in Tokyo, everyone slowly disembarking in the way of people who had been getting on planes so regularly lately that it had become common practice. This worked in Maya and Lucas' favor, as they were able to lead the girls out the way they meant to without their noticing, as they would usually be too busy taking in their surroundings. Alright, they sort of did that, too, but this time they did their best to also focus on locating something which would definitely not be a shiny new thing for them to discover but rather…

"Huh, would you look at that," Maya intoned, and Lucas gave her a look. That was not her most subtle performance. She shrugged. At least it did the job. Cara and Shae looked to them, then past them, in search of what might have been…

"Mom?" Cara blurted out, even as her feet led her scurrying to where she had seen not just her mother but her stepfather… and her brothers and sisters… and her grandmother, too! Abigail caught her on the fly, just as happy to see her daughter. She'd had to get used to not having Sam at home these past four years, but Cara… She had never been so long separated from her firstborn girl, and she wasn't used to it yet.

"Oh…" Shae pointed her finger back to Lucas, like she'd pieced it all together now, and he smiled, leading her along toward the pack of Hart-Lanes.

"Maya!" Wyatt bolted for his big sister, and she awaited his hug with extended hands as he ran for her. He stopped himself before he might collide with her, looking at her belly for a moment before finally throwing his arms around her.

"Hey, you," Maya smiled, leaning to kiss the top of his head. "How was your trip?"

"Long," Wyatt declared at once.

"Trust me, it could have been worse," she told him as he pulled back and she was met with another of her brothers. She was starting to get how Abigail could be so happy to see Cara after a few weeks apart, now that she was holding her biggest little brother. "Hey, Sammy," she sniffled, though this changed into a laugh when the baby chose this moment to get kicky on her. "Feel that?" she asked as Sam pulled back in surprise.

"That was…" he asked, as she took his hand and set it where she'd felt her, in case… "Ha!" Sam laughed, even as their younger siblings huddled up, looking for an opening so that they might feel something, too. "Hey, alright, alright, don't crowd her, guys, one at a time," Sam told them. When he looked up and caught his sister's smirk, she hoped he knew how her one and only thought in that moment was how much she couldn't wait to see 'Uncle Sam' in action with his baby niece.

X

For Start Tour – Day 18 – Show 11 – Osaka, Japan

Somewhere out there, with Lucas, with Cara and Shae, her family would be watching tonight. Well, most of them. As much as she would have loved to see her granddaughter out there on that stage, Elizabeth Hart remained at the hotel with little Maisie. They had not planned to follow them all the way here, would have remained in Tokyo after the first show, but then as soon as Ree had heard that they were all here, she'd insisted on putting them up here for the night, and to get them tickets for another go if they wanted it, which they had accepted at once.

It had been like a new breath in them, in her, over the past two days, to have the Hart-Lanes among them. They hadn't been away from home all that long in the grand scheme of things, still had so many more weeks to go before they'd be in Austin again. But the feeling of missing the places and people they had left behind had been sitting in them, filling up like a bottle every day, and then they'd walked through that airport, and they'd been reunited with Abigail and James and the kids and… the bottle had gone back to empty, wouldn't start filling again until the next day or the one after, once they had gone on their way and the Hart-Lanes remained for the rest of their family vacation.

For Maya, as much as she'd tried not to think about it too much, for fear that it would only make it harder not to think about it every single day afterward, having them here had awakened just how much she missed her mother.

It was silly, she was doing fine, she would continue to do fine, but… But she was about to be a mother herself, and her girl was growing in her belly, more alive to her every day, and from her heart there would come this one thought, over and over. I wish Mom was here…

She knew that if she told her as much, Katy would be on a plane as soon as she could get on one, but… no… She couldn't do that to her. She would be in LA, her and Shawn, too. She would be starting to shoot her first episode, doing what she'd worked so hard to get to. Maya could be patient.

And then her stepmother had arrived in Japan, her and her grandmother, too, and as soon as she'd seen them, it had been like soothing waters over a burn. They were oh so happy to see her, too, to ask after how she was doing, moving along through her first pregnancy, as good as welcoming her into the world of mothers, and her relief would grow.

"You miss her very much, don't you?" her grandmother had asked her, that first night after they'd all arrived in Tokyo. They'd been walking to the hotel after dinner, and she'd just fallen into step with her, looping her arm with hers, and Maya felt so much like just leaning her head to her shoulder as they went.

"Yeah…" she'd quietly confessed.

"I regretted so many things about not standing up for your father, all those years ago. But I regretted some for your mother, too," Elizabeth told her. Maya looked at her, not following. "She was so young, and there she was, in New York, as good as on her own, no mother or father by her side. If I hadn't listened to Charles, I could have been there for her, I could have helped her."

The notion had never occurred to Maya like this, but now that it did… Oh, how her grandmother was right. She was far from home, far from her mother, but she would see her again in time, her and her father both, while her mother… She'd gone through all this, at eighteen, with no one to see her through but herself and Kermit. She might have gone back home, back to Arkansas and her parents, but clearly she'd felt she couldn't, not at the time, especially coming back pregnant… Maya didn't know that she could ever have understood how this might have sat in her mother's heart, not until now.

They were making up for lost time now, but so much of it was just that… lost… In the meantime, yes, Maya was here and Katy was there, but it wasn't as though they didn't speak. They wrote or called, every day. What did she even have to complain about except contact, closeness…

Maya heard her cue. She walked out on to that stage, and the spectators welcomed her. T, X, N, Y, she signed at her hip. Somewhere out there, with Lucas, with Cara and Shae, her family would be watching tonight.

It would be their last show for Asia. Tomorrow, they were flying off, dipping over for one show in Cape Town before rising into Europe for the next leg of their tour. It was only going to become more and more of a balancing act between the effects of the pregnancy and the limits and requirements it would impose on to her ability to carry on through the tour. She was doing great so far, and she believed she could continue to do great all the way back home at the end of August. But then, of course, she would be almost thirty weeks into her pregnancy by then, and she didn't have any personal understanding of just what that would demand of her.

She didn't have to find out tonight. Tonight was about this show, right here, where her family was watching. She always gave the best of herself, but this time it felt important for whole other reasons, didn't it?

X

For Start Tour, Day 19 – Traveling day, Japan to South Africa

"How long before we have to get up?" Maya asked. She'd only woken up about half a minute before, and when she'd established that Lucas was awake, too, she'd maneuvered her way around to face him, her long pillow toppling to the ground in favor of a more husband-shaped one instead.

"Well," Lucas considered the question, getting a look at the time. "We have to be at the airport in two hours, we're just about packed, but I can't speak for your sister or Shae. And we have to say goodbye to the Hart-Lanes before we go. And there's getting dressed, checking the room, breakfast…"

"Alright, alright, I get the picture," she sighed. "Can I get just… five minutes?" she asked, turning those blue eyes up at him.

"Five minutes for what?" he wondered. She shrugged, but she kept that eye contact unbroken. "That is going to take more than five minutes," he whispered, as though the girls were right there with them and not across the hall in their own room.

"Yeah, but see, that's part of my master plan," Maya smirked, moving up to kiss him and finding him more than into this.

"Your master plan also includes us missing our flight?" he asked, when she let him come up for air.

"Gotta say, I'm not thinking about any planes right now…"

"How about thinking about having to explain this one to Ree and the others?" She sighed.

"I love you being Mister Voice of Reason most times, but right now…"

"Believe me, I hate him, too, right about now," he traced lines along her arm, feeling himself getting lost in her eyes again. Finally, he really had to 'be that guy' again. "Come on, we have to go."

"Fine, fine… Kind of have to pee anyway…" she admitted, turning again and getting up.

Saying goodbye to the Hart-Lanes, after the last few days, was bound to bring something of a down over the For Starters, and for being aware of this going in, Maya had turned to Lucas as they dressed and went about doing last checks around the room. They needed to do something, for themselves as much as for the girls. Cara was bound to be bummed out to see her parents and siblings depart, and even for Shae it could bring up thoughts of missing her own family, her and brother, even if she'd see them the following week. So, they had to come up with something, especially as they headed into what was to be one of their longer flights.

Lucas had been the one to come up with the idea. He'd returned from across the hall, seeing to it that the girls were awake and also getting ready, to catch the sound of his wife singing to herself. She was finishing up getting ready for the day, fixing up her hair, off in her own world. And somehow, from there, he had come to the conclusion that what they needed that day was to benefit from the fact that they would essentially have a plane to themselves, them and the rest of the tour crew.

When he told her what he had in mind, he knew she was on board as soon as she gave him those big eyes full of light, like a lightbulb really had gone on in her head.

"You should go and find Ree and run it by her," Maya told him, almost pushing him out toward the hall.

"Wait, why me?" Lucas asked. Clearly, she was the one with the connection to Ree, not him.

"You can get to her faster than I can, probably, and I need to stay near the girls, goodbye day and all that. Also, kind of have to go again," she sighed.

So, Lucas took off to track down Ree. They knew what room she was in, were always welcome to drop by, as she'd say every time, but he definitely felt just a bit strange, showing up at a world-famous singer's hotel room door. Then again, the further this tour went, wasn't he also sharing his room and his bed with one of those, too? It was still too strange of a concept to think about, even after watching her and Ree doing that show eleven times already, in eight different countries.

Lucas knocked at the door, and – after asking who it was – Christina Sutcliffe opened it and let him in. Ree saw him and thought at once that something might have gone wrong with Maya and the baby, but he reassured her at once. He explained the situation with the girls, and the goodbyes, and the long flight, before presenting his plan. To his relief, it was received, by Ree, and Christina, and Peter Sutcliffe, as a very good idea and the potential for a very good time on their way to Cape Town.

Before long, they were all boarding the plane, soon to be the site of the very impromptu return of Ree Forster to her old coaching duties, along with newly appointed fellow coach Maya Hart. To the delight and amusement of the collected manifest of their flight, just about everyone from family members, and tour crew, and even attendants in the end, went ahead and auditioned, after which they would find themselves drafted up to one team or the other before competing against one another. Over the hours, the groups would dwindle down to the very top 'contestants,' before a winner could be crowned, to much applause, right before they were informed they were about to land and they needed to return to their seats.

"I tell you, I did not see that attendant coming," Maya shook her head, laughing, as she and Lucas buckled in.

"But your team won," he proudly reminded her.

"Yes, yes, we did," Maya humbly tipped her head. In the end, Lucas could see that his idea had not only done what they'd hoped it would do for Cara and Shae but for Maya herself, too. It could only bode well for this next stretch of shows ahead of them.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners