A/N: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available, on its new upload day, Thursday!

December 31st 2020

Chapter 366
Their Moment of Landing

For Start Tour – Day 62 – Show 38 – Miami, Florida

All through the last two months, as it would become necessary, they would adjust her clothes for the show. A couple of times they had gone for something brand new, and it always would leave Maya and Lucas and the rest of the tour crew to feel as though she'd just popped overnight when it had been a relatively steady uptick.

Standing backstage tonight... well, sitting backstage, actually... she really felt like they'd turned a page with this one. It could have been because her wrist was well enough now that she no longer had anything over it, so people would be most drawn to her belly again, but no, it was definitely just that part. With her third trimester underway, she was experiencing a lot of changes, in the way she looked as much as felt.

"I swear I heard something rip, halfway through," Maya breathed as she and Ree had left the stage in DC two nights before. "Not sure what part, back here somewhere..."

"That's why you were sitting like that?" Ree asked, sounding like she had to work very hard not to laugh. "I thought you had a cramp, or you had to pee..."

"There was definitely a cramp by the end, I just didn't want to make it worse right in the middle of everything..."

"Please, I've done worse than that," Ree now laughed. "Let me have a look, it might not be... oh, no, here it is..."

"What is it? The pants or the shirt?"

"Pants..." Ree directed her to her dressing room. "Top's working overtime as it is, might not hold much longer either."

"How am I going to last until November if I keep going like this?" Maya asked, bordering on exasperated. "Maybe I'll just explode on Halloween, that'll be on brand."

"I doubt it'll come to that," Ree laughed. "Jeannette, love, we need you!" she called to the woman who had been so diligently handling Maya's clothes across the tour. By the way she walked, she might have realized what was happening while the show was in progress, something which was confirmed for how she approached with clothes on hand for the expectant mother to change into.

By the time Lucas and the girls found their way over to her, she was sitting in wait, with water and a snack, and looking very relieved to be out of the costume which had finally given up on her.

"You know, by the end, I fully expect for this to be my whole center of gravity to the point where I won't even be able to stand," she'd sighed with the bliss of her reunion with their hotel bed's mattress. Her nap earlier that day had earned the thing a top 'prego rating' in her book, which she promised to be an actual thing that existed.

"I'll just carry you everywhere if it comes to that," Lucas had promised, dropping on his stomach at her side, the better to run his hand over that expanding belly.

"You're very strong, but I think I might have you stumped there," she'd whispered even as she smiled.

"Have I ever made a promise halfway?" he'd countered, leaving her to consider, trailing her fingers through his hair. The smirk that rose over her face right then gave the words before she'd even spoken them.

"Will you be shirtless? I might consider it if you were..."

Once they'd left DC for Florida, there were a few things to make that final stretch feel that much more manageable. For one thing, they only had three shows left, and none of them were on consecutive nights. They still had a couple of bus rides left in them, but those were going to feel like nothing in the grand scheme of things, which in turn would give everyone - pregnant or no - more of a chance to breathe.

"How many days now? Do you remember?" Maya had asked Haley when she and Lucas had their pre-show call to the little Hunters. This had become a thing they did, the closer they got to being home, knowing it would help the kids back there to get through the wait. They'd grown that much more anxious to have them back.

"Five days!" Haley proudly announced, hand up and everything. As she'd done since she was three, she was always very happy whenever she got to say the number that was also her age.

"That's it!" Lucas laughed while Maya gave her little sister a few modest claps.

It was four days until the tour was over, yes, but seeing as they wouldn't be going home, the tour cast to the winds, until the next day, they would say five.

"I like your new shirt," Nellie told her, smiling bright.

"Oh, thank you, look..." she stood up and stepped back so they could take in the whole outfit.

They'd done her hair and makeup differently, too, and Maya was really enjoying this latest version of her stage look. Lucas was a pretty big fan of it, too. When she'd come along to show him, he'd had that smile on him most commonly found on Date nights.

"Not gonna lie, it's kind of a relief that I can still do that," she'd told him, "And this is not me fishing for a compliment, it's just... it's a thing."

"A thing," he'd nodded, giving the impression that he knew she was being silly and that he'd just need to humor her.

"Shut up," she'd laughed, moving up to kiss him. It was a comfort, she guessed, that she had absolutely no need to worry about him thinking her any less than she'd always been. He would just look at her, and she'd know his love only had higher grounds to climb to.

Tomorrow, they would be getting back on that bus for the first of only two trips remaining. And after that next one, oh, they'd be locking two more digits, the last one remaining being their house, their home.

X

For Start Tour, Day 64 – Show 39 – Baton Rouge, Louisiana

"How many days now?" Maya asked her siblings, while Lucas accessed his inner ham and held up one hand to hide the other, which held up three fingers, while he looked around to come off innocent. It had the little Hunters laughing as they confirmed that, yes, there were three days left. "Good job, guys, and you didn't even have any help at all," Maya looked to Lucas, who gave an exaggerated shrug. After they'd finished the call and hung up, she leaned over and kissed him.

"Hey… We're going to Texas tomorrow," he smiled, which got her going, too.

"All the way to sweet, sweet, Austin, Texas," she nodded. "Do you know what I'm thinking?"

"Ma Maggie's for everyone?"

"Don't even joke about that, I am very pregnant, and I haven't had any of that in two months," she gasped.

"Not even a joke, I will make them pull the bus right up to the door," he replied, and she gave a powerful 'be still my heart' press of her hand to her chest. "So, besides that, what were you thinking?"

"I…" she started, then frowned. "I forgot… No! Got it back! I was thinking about her," she set her hand to her belly. "We picked her first name, but we never really discussed anything for her middle name." Lucas blinked, just now realizing that she was right.

"Do you have something in mind?" he asked, and she nodded. "Alright, what is it?" While she had sort of confirmed the choice, it had been his wish to call their baby after his grandmother if she was a girl, so if she had an idea for this one.

"Well, I…" she looked around. There were people milling about, but no one to really pay attention to them. Still, she signed it, spelling out the letters. He had it figured out after just two letters, and he considered it, saying it to himself in his head. Marianne Christine Friar… They would always remember, wouldn't they? They would always remember this summer, this tour, the two of them… three of them… going all over the world because of one Christine Sutcliffe, also known as Ree Forster.

"It's perfect," he told her, and she was so happy to hear him say it. She'd been thinking about it for a few weeks already, but lately she'd just gotten to feel more and more certain. And now they had decided it. "Are you going to tell her?"

"Well, she's going to find out eventually," Maya nodded. "Figured I'd wait until the Austin show, before or after."

Lucas finally had to go and leave the backstage area, to go find his parents and the girls, off at their seats. As they'd arranged back in Seattle, before they'd gone their separate ways, Thomas and Melinda Friar had been waiting for them at the hotel when they all arrived from Miami the previous afternoon.

It had only been two weeks since they'd last seen each other, but the reunion was no less emotional. Maybe it was because of the very positive way in which they'd left things, but everyone was now that much more… open… in how glad they were to see each other. Lucas saw it in the way Maya hugged his mother and father, even as they hugged her. They had all been close, for years, long before the two of them had even really started to date, and it had only increased from there, again when they had been engaged, and again when they had been married, when they had lived together after the kitchen fire, then when they'd become pregnant…

And now it felt like more again, like even though she'd started to call them Mom and Dad – at their request – this was the moment when they'd really become that for her. She was going to need them so much, after the baby was born, and realizing how she didn't even need to ask herself if they would be there, if they would be as parents to her…

"How's she doing? Giving you any troubles?" Thomas asked after he and Maya had pulled from their hug.

"Well, playing with my breathing a little, which is not helping when you're out there trying to sing…" Maya told him with a sigh, and Melinda nodded at this like she understood very well. "Dr. Jill's been helping me to put every chance on my side. Only two shows left, so I just need to get through those."

Even as he went and found his parents and the girls now, Lucas knew his wife would be back there, sitting, waiting for her cue, working on her breathing… As little as it could actually do to help her, he would find himself taking deep breaths as he sat and waited, too. In his mind, he could allow himself to imagine that those extra breaths would go and find her, help her. When she did step out, and the crowd cheered – he never got tired of seeing that part – and she sat on her stool, she started to sing and… he smiled. There she was. He knew this didn't mean that she wouldn't be struggling under all that, but she was pulling through, like it was any other night. It was his thirty-ninth time seeing her up on a stage, giving this concert with Ree Forster, and as much as he loved his 'I've seen it this amount of times' joke, he could have sat and watched and listened for as many times as she'd be up there, singing like that.

X

For Start Tour – Day 65 – Traveling day – Baton Rouge to Austin

"If I said I wanted to hold your hand for this…" Maya whispered back without looking away from the bus windows. When she felt Lucas' hand slip under hers, closing over, she smiled, taking a quick peek back over her shoulder to confirm he was smiling, too, before looking out again.

"Here it comes," he whispered at her, making her laugh.

"What are you guys doing?" Cara asked from across the aisle.

"Oh, great, she does that like Sam, too," Maya huffed, still whispering. "We are having a moment, don't ruin it," she told her sister at regular volume, before sitting up in her seat and squeezing her husband's hand.

They had just passed the Texas state line.

"Third digit locked," Lucas told her, and Maya breathed, sitting back. "Fourth one won't be too far behind."

Today had been very good from the start, which they'd chosen to put on to the fact that they were taking their final bus ride today, and they would be back in Texas by the end of the day, looking on to the sky over their city.

"Should we just go to the house tonight?" Maya asked when they woke up, still in Louisiana. Lucas wasn't following. "Well, when we were in Manchester, Ree and her husband let us stay at their house there, so shouldn't we take the three of them to our house to return the favor?"

"Well, we could, absolutely," Lucas agreed. "But…"

"But if we go there, if I go there…" Maya sighed, knowing he was right. It would take her right out of the momentum, when they only had one show left to get through. "Well, we could have them come over the morning after the last show, when we leave the hotel…"

"We can, yes," Lucas smiled.

Unfortunately, the Sutcliffes were due to fly back to England that morning, so they wouldn't be able to come. Maya understood it completely. They wanted to be home, too. But she'd been truly touched for the thought and promised to drop by and see them when she came back around to the US. The way she told it, she could well be getting to meet her middle namesake by then, which worked out for everyone.

Even as this door had gone and closed, another had opened, brightening up the rest of their brief stay in Baton Rouge. There was a message for them from the front desk at the hotel, telling them that there were a couple of young women asking to see them, naming themselves as being Maya's cousins. When they'd heard those names, they had confirmed that yes, they were exactly who they said they were, and they could be sent up to the room. Lucas still checked the peephole before opening the door, a habit from either his mother or father, he couldn't decide.

Maya and Lucas had met Kyleigh Hinton and Regan Clutterbucket two years ago, same as Betsy Young, same as… well, anyone from Katy's side of the family. And though they hadn't gotten to see one another very often, with them being in Austin and the two cousins living up in Memphis, but there had been the occasional visit, holidays and the likes. More than anything, they kept in contact with text messages and a phone call from time to time. The 'twin' cousins were two years younger than Maya and among the whole of the Clutterbucket set, along with Charlie, Betsy, and Randall – Regan's father – were those they kept in closest contact.

They were also huge Ree Forster fans, introduced via Betsy, of course. Maya hadn't even had the chance to call them up and say she'd get them in to whatever show they could get themselves to: they had already bought their tickets.

"Maya, wow!" Kyleigh gasped, much as Regan did, when they were let into the room and spotted her sitting on the couch just as they'd hugged and greeted Lucas.

"Hey!" Maya laughed, pulling herself to her feet and heading toward them. She swore she'd actually waddled just a bit right there. As much as she was starting to take issue with the liberties some people took in touching her belly the bigger it got, her second cousins were still very much on the 'VIP list' for belly feels. With how quickly their hands came to rest there, it was a good thing.

"I don't know how you got through this whole tour with… I don't mean to make it sound like…" Regan hesitated.

"No, it's okay, I get it," Maya assured her. "And… it's been rough here and there, especially the further along I got, but I had a lot of help," she went on, turning a smile to Lucas, to Cara and Shae as well, as the girls came up to introduce themselves. "Are you coming over for the Austin show, too?" Maya asked her cousins.

"Oh, well, we tried, but that one sold out the fastest," Kyleigh told her, and Maya only looked at the two of them, waiting so they'd get the point on their own.

After a few seconds, they remembered the very important fact that they had about the best connection, short of being related to Ree herself, for getting them into the final performance of the For Start tour. Maya had done them one better. They got to ride the tour bus with them, into Texas, and very soon…

"Wait for it…" Lucas whispered at Maya's ear and she smiled, giving an exaggerated 'bracing' motion, offering her hand again until he took it.

"Might actually be tingling," she whispered back.

"Save that for later," he told her, making her snort.

After sixty-five days… possibly more, if they accounted for their first flights, the time difference… After two months and some days, Lucas, Maya, and the For Start tour bus were at long last entering into the city of Austin, Texas.

X

For Start Tour – Day 66 – Show 40 – Austin, Texas

"Did you go out earlier?" Maya asked Lucas as she sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes, to find him returning to the room.

"I did, yes," he confirmed, sounding like he had been awake significantly longer than her. "Hungry?" he asked, and his smile intrigued her.

"You know it," she breathed, tugging at her shirt, which tended to climb off her belly in the night, to pull it back into place. She looked back up, quick and suddenly hopeful. "You didn't…"

"Did I… what?" he shook his head, and she might have told him off for that tone like he was smirking on the inside, but then she caught a scent… the nearest thing to heavenly…

"Feed us…" she pleaded, in her best demon-possessed voice. A moment later, Lucas was bringing along a bag with the very familiar and long-awaited logo on the front. "I might actually cry," Maya laughed as he sat with her on the bed and presented her with the bag. "This will not be dignified."

"I may not be pregnant, but I promise you I will demolish this," Lucas pointed into the bag.

"I've seen you do it, I believe you," Maya nodded, motioning for him to lean in so she could kiss him, which he did. "Wait, what about the others? We said they'd…"

"I called in the order last night, for everyone. They brought it out to the hotel, I helped to distribute, everyone is having the best breakfast they've had all tour at this moment," Lucas filled her in, and she did not know how to stop smiling.

"You know, this tour wouldn't have been… a tenth as good without you there, right?" she told him.

"It's the southern charm," he 'agreed,' tipping his invisible hat.

"I'm going to start drooling soon, fifty-fifty because of the food, and I'll let you figure what the other half is from, Huckleberry. Eat your food while it's hot."

The temptation was so strong for them to go out and about into the city today, until later, when Maya would have her pre-show nap and then they'd move through the familiar steps. But just like the reason why they were in the hotel now and not back at their house when it was really not so far away by now, it would not have done them any good to snap out of tour mode with just one show left on the schedule. So, they stayed at the hotel. They went to the pool after they had sufficiently digested their Ma Maggie breakfast. Everyone they'd run into from the tour crew had rained praise on to their favored restaurant, and if they couldn't head into their city then they had at least brought it back into the hotel. They continued this streak by calling on Nando Garcia with a massive lunch order, only to have him precede them in saying he would call to his sister Isabel, over in Houston, to see if she might be able to pull something together for their dinner, which she assured them she would do, with great pleasure.

"As good as having them stay with us at the house?" Lucas asked Maya when they heard back about dinner, and she nodded, feeling every touch of her city was like a boost of energy she took and stored away, the better to end this tour with a bang.

When Nando's order arrived, Ree and her husband had already invited for the For Starters to come and eat in their hotel room along with Cara and Shae. This led into stories of Maya's working at the diner when she was in high school, and at Isabel's when she was in college, veering into the others sharing stories of their own teenage jobs. Of course, few could top Ree, who had gone and become nothing short of a pop icon from age sixteen.

"How many days?" Maya asked her siblings, later on, as she was about to get ready for the last time.

"One! One!" Haley chanted, hopping along, and it was rousing enough that she got one, and two, and then all three of the other kids in on it. Any of the tour crew who happened to be passing by where Maya was sitting overheard it and took up the call like their rallying cry, guaranteeing to make it something they could call back to, in years to come, if their paths were ever to cross again.

"Tonight, I want you to come out there with me at the start," Ree came to find her when she was just coming from hair and makeup. "This is your town, your people, so we finish this one together, yes?"

"Yes," Maya nodded, feeling the rise of tears. "Okay, well, that was bound to happen sooner or later," she laughed, reaching for a tissue.

"I won't tell you how many times I've had to redo my face already today, and you won't ask, how's that?" Ree smiled, a moment before she had to reach for a tissue, too.

"Well, if we're going to do the crying thing…" Maya looked back at her.

"Oh, no, what is it?" Ree asked, like she was already foreseeing some waterworks and did not look forward to one more fix. After a moment, Maya reached for the tissue box and placed it on her knee, just in case.

"So, it's like this, see… The last two months have been memorable, yes, for… so many reasons," she tapped at her belly. "But it's so much more than memories, I mean… It was so many things all at once, and nothing else will ever be like it again. It just can't. So, for a while, I was thinking about my daughter, how she will always remind me of this tour, all those nights you and I stood on a stage together, doing this thing that makes us so happy, that's in our hearts." Ree reached and took Maya's hand with one of hers. The other had to grab a new tissue, dabbing at her eyes. "So, Lucas and I, we want her full name to be Marianne… Christine… Friar," she lightly tipped her head at each name.

When Ree heard her own, she gasped, and, oh, she smiled, pulling Maya into a good, long hug.

"Here's the plan then. We get our faces touched up, and we go out there, and we knock 'em out with your songs and our voices. Give them a good Hello, Austin!"

X

For Start Tour – The morning after

"Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for bringing me," Shae hugged both Maya and Lucas at once. Her father and her brother had arrived from Houston to pick her up, and now, after a lengthy goodbye – as though they wouldn't be living two hours apart from one another – with Cara, it was her 'hosts'' turn.

"It was our pleasure, Miss Shayla Blake," Maya grinned, leaning to whisper at her ear. "One day, that'll be you out there." Shae's smile knew no bounds and, with a nod, she hurried off to get in her father's car.

"Us now?" Lucas looked to the Hart sisters before nodding up ahead, where he'd spotted the red minivan driving toward the hotel's main entrance.

"Never been happier to see you, Sparkles!" Maya hummed when she could reach out and touch the hood. Out of the driver's seat came the most welcome sight of the boy Maya and Cara both fought so hard not to call out to in the most embarrassing way as was the privilege of sisters with a brother. "But even happier to see you, Samuel," Maya advanced on him and took the hug as much as she gave it. "How's the house? Still standing? How are the pumpkins? Did you go see the dogs? Tell me things!"

"I will get you home, because clearly you need to get there already, weirdo," he smirked, dodging her attempts to grab at him like a zombie. "Also, Cara already agreed she'd come and spend the night at the apartment with me and Dora so you guys could have the house."

"Joke's on you, I don't know what you thought we'd be doing, but I'm probably going to sleep until tonight."

Lucas had caught the end of this as he came from getting the last of their bags into the minivan, and somehow he didn't see her going to sleep until tonight. She'd be much too excited to be home again. He knew he was certainly in that headspace. This was his city, had been his city all his life except maybe for their college years in Houston, and even then… He had loved just about every last day, every last minute of this tour, seeing the world, with Maya and the girls. But they were back now, and whether it was the food, or the people, who somehow felt like his people because they were from here, too… They were home, and it felt like letting out a good, deep, centering breath. Sitting in the minivan, Sam at the wheel, looking out to streets, and store fronts, and everything that was so, so familiar to him… He could have walked home, taking it all in, and he would have been happy.

Nothing would make him happier than to lock in that last digit, that last page of the brick-sized book of this tour. When they turned on to the lane, it was almost too much. Here was the Sanderson Farm, and he caught a glimpse in the distance of Missy Sanderson, walking with Trooper. Here was the Oswalds' home, with that open land they'd always been happy to let them use, for Halloween mazes or their friends' wedding…

And here was their house… just as they'd left if but at the same time Lucas swore it had never looked this good. He looked over to Maya and oh how she was looking out at it with that same look, too. They were home, finally, they were home.

"I can go get the dogs back here before we go," Sam offered after they'd moved all the bags and suitcases from the minivan over to the porch. They hadn't opened the door yet. Maya was waiting in front of it.

"It's alright, I'll get them later," Lucas told Sam, clapping him on the shoulder, then, because he'd missed him, and he was home, and he was glad, shifted this into another hug.

Sam and Cara headed out in Dora's car now, which Sam had driven out here to get the minivan. Lucas turned to find Maya now had her house keys in her hands, and to see how she was almost nervous, it reminded him of when he'd brought her here, four years ago, the night of Zay and Nadine's wedding, when he'd proposed to her. He'd been so nervous, too, because walking into that house with her had been the start of something, a new chapter in their lives, and it was so massive, so life-changing…

That was what this would be, too, in a way. Their little girl wouldn't be here for another two and a half months, but she was so close now that they couldn't well act as though their lives hadn't already changed, as though that new chapter wasn't starting right here and now. They had been off in tour mode all summer, and now tour mode was over. This was their lives again, whatever they'd make of them from here on out.

Maya unlocked the door and pushed it open, walking in to find quiet all around, but also, in a way, surrounded by the sounds of home. The creak of the floors, the hum of the air conditioning…

"You know what's weird? We've been away so long, but right now it feels just like I remembered, so it's almost like we never left."

"It does," Lucas came along behind her, his hand coming to rest around her waist. "Except…"

"The dogs," she nodded, right there with him.

"Want me to go get them?" he asked, kissing the top of her head. She smiled.

"I'll go with you."

THE END

See you tomorrow, for chapter 1 of the 2021 Lucaya Project story: (One Day You'll Have) Children of Your Own! - mooners