December 25th 2022

Chapter 359
Our Trip Into Leadership

The last days leading up to 'the passing of the keys,' Lucas dreamed of his grandparents every night. It was more or less done already, short of Juliet looking at him and flat out telling him that it was official. She was still at the ranch every day, but by now she mostly took meetings with their regular clients, or with employees, or anyone else she had been regularly dealing with over the years, all of them giving off the impression of closing the books, Juliet saying her thanks, talking to everyone one last time in her capacity as head of Sullivan Stables. According to Donna, she'd also been talking Lucas up to everyone, letting them know they'd be 'in very good hands' once she was gone.

To him, some of the time, it felt like the last days of senior year at school, when everything was nearly over, and they just had to wait things out before that last bell rang and they were done. They were excited to get going, but at the same time… At the same time, the closer they'd come to the edge, the end of the line, the easier it would be to look back, to remember all the good times and to think about what it would mean, to leave this place and this time that had been so important to their life. Juliet had been feeling it, no doubt to it. Lucas had lost count of how many times he'd either run into her or spotted her as he went about his day, always with this impression about her like she was taking a last tour, remembering her years, thinking about leaving.

Bittersweet. That was what her entire face said, her posture, her voice. She didn't regret her choice, she would have to go sooner or later, and it was time. But this had been more than a job, this had been her home. Even before she actually lived here, before she'd taken over from Marianne Sullivan, she had found in the ranch something that meant so, so much to her. It had been enough for her friend and mentor to choose her to take over, because she'd known that she would look after the ranch and its people the way she would want them to be looked after. Melinda or Michael might have done it, if they'd had it in them, but it was never their thing, and their mother wouldn't force them into it.

She wouldn't have forced Lucas into it either if he hadn't wanted it. Sure, he'd professed to his grandmother that he would be a vet some day, that he'd look after the horses, but he'd been a little boy at the time, with plenty of years to change his mind, to find something else, something more.

To my grandson, Lucas Thomas Friar, if he should grow to hold his end of the bargain, I will hold mine. The day he receives his degree as a veterinarian, he is to be hired at Sullivan Stables, if he so desires.

He'd wonder sometimes what Juliet would have done if he hadn't 'desired' to do what he'd said he'd do once he'd gotten a few more years in him. Who would have been the one to take over for her? Would she have kept working at the ranch for however many years if she hadn't found someone that felt right to her? The closer they'd been getting to this point in time, the more that question had been turning around in his head, and his answer had been… It would have been him, no matter what, because he would have found his way here regardless. It was a powerful feeling, knowing where you belonged in life, and he'd found it, three times over. He belonged with Maya. He belonged as father to their girls. And he belonged at Sullivan Stables.

Days ago, they'd had Juliet's farewell party. Donna had wanted it to be a surprise. Lucas wasn't so sure it would be a good idea, that she might not like to have some big gesture like that, much less to have it sprung on to her. Donna was hard set on it though. The way she saw it, she'd been Marianne Sullivan's best friend, and when Juliet had taken over, Donna had seen herself as her guide, her protector, maybe even something like a sister… or a mother… And now Juliet was leaving and there was no way that Donna Josephine Devereaux, dance teacher extraordinaire and event coordinator at Sullivan Stables, was going to let her girl go quietly.

Lucas had let her have her way, wouldn't have dreamed of taking that from her. He may have ever so discreetly given Juliet due warning, but only in such a way that he knew would allow everyone to win. Juliet would be able to prepare herself and Donna would be able to give her the surprise send-off she rightly deserved. That made it so that, in the midst of those last days, whenever the two women would see each other, Donna would play innocent, as though she wasn't planning the party to end all, and Juliet would be doing the same… and smiling to herself as soon as she'd walk away.

Finally, the night had come, which had involved some 'trickery' to keep Juliet on the premises longer than she normally would be now that she no longer lived at the house. Funnily enough, this had also required for Juliet to get changed, in order to 'try on' a dress that was supposedly meant for someone else. Oh, but she couldn't just do that, it was no way to show the potential of the dress, no. She needed to do her hair up a bit, do her makeup in a way that would be appropriate as well, oh and Donna was certain she had some shoes, maybe a few finishing touches, yes, much better…

Did Juliet actually fool everyone to think that she'd had no idea what was about to happen? That was doubtful. Donna herself might have realized that Juliet was on to her. But whether or not she was, and whether anyone else saw through her act, too, it didn't matter. When it came down to it, Juliet had a wonderful time and so did everyone else. By the end of the night, even though this was not at all a forever goodbye, and Juliet hadn't actually left yet, Donna was weeping, recalling stories of years past, both before and after Juliet had taken over. She recalled first meeting her, how she'd been one of the ranch hands' daughter, how her brother would come here to ride, to learn… Her first job here had nothing to do with the horses, but it didn't matter. She'd always loved it here and she'd belonged. Marianne Sullivan had seen it.

The party passing them by, that had really been the last step they'd needed to feel the end coming. And while Juliet had been reminiscing, Donna had been going around with an air that bordered on the dramatic, like she would need to get a rest to recover from her imminent separation. It had been enough to fool a few uninitiated campers into thinking that there was something going on with the old woman. They would have scolded her for scaring them if there wasn't at least some part of them that just wanted to let her have this. That was her way of 'mourning,' wasn't it?

"I can't decide what she'll be like tomorrow," Maya reflected as they went to bed, her and Lucas, on the night before The Big Day. He looked at her, curious. "Donna," she explained. "Is she going to be all dramatic and sad about Juliet or excited and exuberant for you?"

"Well… It's Donna… which means she'll probably be all of those things… maybe in the same five minutes," Lucas reflected, which made her laugh. "I don't think it really dawned on me until this week how much a lot of my mother is like Donna and my grandmother pressed together." Maya gave him a look, pausing to think… She laughed again.

"I… I never thought about it that way either, but now that you mention it, that makes… a whole lot of sense."

The night before the big day, he couldn't sleep. He didn't know why. Maya was usually the one who had trouble sleeping on nights before big events, not him, but here they were, and she was sleeping peacefully in his arms while he could stare at her shoulder, and her ear, and that wisp of hair curling next to it, and the barely visible lift of her eyelashes in the moonlight as she breathed… and sleep didn't come. He knew that if he stayed that way long enough, sooner or later, she would wake up and realize it. The best thing he could do right now, for both of them, was to get up and try to find some way of winding himself down properly, so he could sleep. He wasn't sure how he was going to pull that one off, but he'd have to get there somehow.

He got up out of bed and quietly left the room. He checked in on the girls and found them all asleep, or… mostly asleep.

"Hey there, cub," he whispered as he crouched by Kacey's bed. His daughter may have been very bright and learning things every day, but as of yet, from what he'd seen, lying was not something she knew to do well. Sometimes she'd think that she did, and they would try and let her believe that they believed it, but they saw through her, always. That went so far as this, right here, when Lucas looked in on her and her sisters and found her very clearly trying to come off like she was asleep but failing as only a girl all of a month shy of four years old would do. "Well, see, here's the thing, I can't tickle you to prove that you're awake because, if I do, then I'll wake your sisters up… and your mom… and we don't want that, do we?" She was giving herself away even further as she reacted to this, but again she was sticking to her story. She was 'asleep.' "Well, hey, if you gotta do it, then you gotta…" he shook his head to himself.

Rather than to speak up and tell him not to tickle her, Kacey's response was to swiftly and silently get up out of her bed – from the opposite side to where he crouched – and skitter out of the room, into the hall. When Lucas looked over, there she was, peeking around the side of the doorway. He stood up and approached her as she watched him all the while. In the hall, he picked her up and carried her down the stairs, at the bottom of which he sat and brought her to do the same in his lap.

"Now I have a pretty good idea why I'm awake, so what's your excuse?" he asked. Kacey shrugged. "You don't know, huh?" he asked, and she shook her head. "Yeah, that happens," he nodded. "You go ahead and put your head right here and we'll see what we can do about getting you back to sleep, okay?"

"No tickling," Kacey warned.

"Oh, you have my word, I promise," he smiled. Good enough. Kacey leaned her head to his shoulder, and he kept her wrapped up in his arms. For a minute or so, they remained this way in silence, but he had a feeling that this wasn't going to be enough, not for Miss Kacey Angela Friar, not this night. So, he told her about his dreams, about his grandparents.

He told her about how he'd been dreaming that he got to know his grandfather Simon. He'd never gotten to do that, and because she'd been so little when he'd died, neither had his mother, but then he'd been getting to learn so much about the man in recent years, enough so that he had this idea of who he was as a person in his head, enough so that he now had that very image alive and thriving in his dreams. It was always very clear that this could have been nothing else but a dream, because in those dreams Lucas would be the same age that he was now, or he would be a child, and always his grandfather was exactly as he had been, in his last year alive. He could never quite manage to figure out what he would look like had he been able to age further. All he had to go on was his mother – and that didn't tell him much – and himself – and that told him even less. Yes, sure, he had some of his mother's side in him, and if he looked at pictures of Simon, he could see it, but he definitely carried much more of the Friar side in him, so inevitably his attempts to age up Simon made him look much more like his own father, or his grandfather… A lot of the time it would make him look like Hank Hillard. So, after a while, it was as though his brain had given up. He was just fine seeing a young Simon Sullivan, and so he would remain.

Lucas told Kacey of how he'd dream of his other grandfather, Jax, Michael's father. Now with him there was no trouble in picturing him older. That was generally the memory he had of the man, before his passing, though he really hadn't been as old as his memories might have made him. Either way, Lucas remembered him. In his dreams, he would go about with the dog they'd named after him trailing at his side. It was not an uncommon thing for him, but generally it wasn't just the dog that found his way into the dream. It would be Maya, and their daughters. That was kind of his dream, his hope, wasn't it? The one that could never come true. He would wish that his grandfather could have known them. It wasn't the same with Simon, much as he wished that it could be. He had known Jax, even if Lucas had still been a child when he'd passed. However briefly he had known him, in the grand scheme of things, he had no doubt of what kind of grandfather… great grandfather… he would have been to his girls, and he was sorry that it would never happen, so he would dream it into being.

His most common appearance involved him taking his great granddaughters into his much too early Halloween shenanigans. Oh, no matter how much her parents loved getting into the Hallowannie spirit, Lucas had no doubt that the person who would have been most excited at the thought that their pumpkin was born on the thirty-first of October would have been Jackson Murphy.

Kacey was asleep now, no faking anymore. Lucas looked down at her, brushed her hair back from her forehead and leaned to press a kiss there before carefully rising with the girl and carrying her back up to her bed. He settled her back into it and returned into the hall, trailing toward the stairs again. Was he able to give sleeping a chance again or did he need to try something else? In answer, his feet carried him back to his room, back to lie down by his wife's side. She didn't wake up, but when his arm returned around her waist, her hand came to rest over his and he breathed, closed his eyes…

He was sure he dreamed of his grandmother when he did fall asleep not long after this, and yet even though he often did well remembering his dreams, he could not say what this one had been about. All he was left with was an impression, like his grandmother in dream form had acted as he'd done, with Kacey, holding him so that he might find rest. Maybe that was just how he saw it, but it worked for him. Either way, he slept, and in the morning, he woke up to a gap having formed itself in the night between him and Maya. It was only in seeing her there now that it dawned on him how uncommon it had become for his firstborn girl to visit them like this, unlike when she'd been younger, but now here was Marianne, his Marianne, asleep between him and her mother. Was it you? Did you bring me that dream? One Marianne for another… He smiled, reached over to cradle her head and in the next moment there were blue eyes fluttering open and looking at him.

"Hey…" he quietly spoke. Marianne yawned as she rubbed at her eyes with the palms of her hands before looking over her shoulder to see if her mother was awake, too. She was, Lucas was sure of it, but she played sleeper, so he let her be, deciding that she was doing so for the benefit of a father-daughter moment. Marianne believed the act, from the looks of it. She looked back around to Lucas and smiled.

"It's today," she signed.

"It is," he signed back. "Is that why you came here?" She shrugged. She didn't have any particular reason but she'd wanted to be there with her parents so she'd come over, couldn't say at what time exactly though it had still been very dark. "I think you helped me sleep. Thank you. I needed it."

"You're welcome," she signed, as though her proud little smile wouldn't have sufficed. He chuckled and hugged her close, the better to get her laughing. It got Maya to turn her head and look at them, and when she caught his gaze, Lucas mouthed the word 'busted,' to which Maya responded with an exaggerated yawn, as though to say 'oh, my, I think I'm still sleepy.'

Sooner or later, they'd all had to get up, all had to get the day going. They were all headed to the ranch together that morning, the benefit of summertime. Lucas didn't know what the state of Donna's emotions would be, but the one thing he felt confident about was that there was no way, even as there hadn't been for her to let Juliet's departure be but a footnote, that she could act like this was any old day either. They knew even as they drove up to and through the arch that the people of Austin had been called upon to know that Lucas Friar was now at the head of Sullivan Stables even as they drove past the property.

"Good morning!" Rafa called to the family as he ran past them on their way out of the parking lot. Lucas had clocked him even as he walked out of the B&B, and he didn't slow down once as he went.

"Where's he headed?" he asked with a chuckle when he saw Cristina had stepped out to come and greet them, too.

"Where do you think?" she smiled. "Donna's got him going like her personal spy, perfectly positioned to keep her up to date on comings and goings." Rafa had been making friends with just about everyone working at the ranch since they'd moved into the house, even before, when he'd gotten himself a job here. To no one's surprise, Donna had taken a shine to the boy and treated him like one more grandson… and a spy, apparently. Just now, he would have been tasked with letting her know that the Friars had arrived. Show time.

It wasn't nearly so bad as he could have imagined it, no fanfare or ticker tape parade, but still it was his big moment, and everyone was going to come around to acknowledge it. If the last little while had felt like the tail end of senior year, this definitely felt like the first day of the new year, everyone being there, getting situated, but not much work getting done. He couldn't say which of the four years this called up in his mind. Either way, Rafa soon returned, walking alongside Donna, and she was going at the speediest pace, coming to meet up with them, and the energy of her stride was enough that it had all the little Friar girls dashing to intercept her, as fast as their little or long legs would carry them. They would join her as she continued toward Lucas, Maya, Ella, Taylor, and Cristina, so much so that Maya would joke that it looked like she was 'the queen of the day.' As far as Lucas was concerned, he wouldn't mind giving her the honor. She had been steadfastly present from the first day of Sullivan Stables, so she deserved it.

"Come now, come, come," Donna told Lucas after she'd greeted everyone and taken an aside with Ella and Taylor, inquiring as to whether the two of them had started discussing wedding plans. She had thoughts. For now, though, even as the engaged pair smiled and walked hand in hand with the group, Donna refocused on this moment, on Lucas, and she led them to the main building.

He'd had an office already, in here and back at the clinic, nearer to the stables. It had been to the right of Juliet's, which had always been an office while his had once been the space where they received prospective couples seeking to have their wedding on the ranch. Personally, Lucas would have been fine holding on to it, but everyone from Donna, Carson, Mariko, and Bishop, to Maya, and his parents, and his grandparents, and of course Juliet herself, had been of the opinion that he should move into the vacated office. So, he'd agreed to it, after which all other responsibilities had been taken from him. They would see to it. All he had to do was show up today.

"Daddy, look!" Marianne hurried ahead when she saw the plaque by the door. It used to have Juliet's name there, but now it was his own. Of all things, that was the one that really sort of made it real to him, like it caught him off guard.

If that hadn't done it, then stepping into the office would have finished the job. He wasn't sure exactly who had been involved, but he'd be willing to bet that Maya had been one of them. They hadn't just moved his things into the existing furniture. They'd changed that, too, and the set they'd picked out, especially the desk and its chair… They felt right to him. It was the personal touches though, the pictures… All his people were there, on the walls, on the desk, and on the shelves, those still with him and those dearly departed. Simon, Marianne, Jax… Susannah Friar… Elizabeth Hart…

"It looks like it's real!" Remy pointed to a framed image hanging over a couch, where the girls now moved to climb, the better to see from up close… their art. They'd all done part of it, the seven of them sisters plus Tori, a sort of office warming gift, but they'd apparently not realized that it would be framed and now they saw it, as Remy had said, like it was 'real,' which to her meant 'like in a museum.'

"You bet it is," Ella told her little sister, holding out her hand for a high five that she received.

"Sit in your chair, Pappy Luke," Tori insisted, and the others agreed that this needed to happen, so they cheered him on until he did.

"Oh, let me just get a picture," Donna fished in her pockets for her phone. His smile as she'd capture it wouldn't be so much for her benefit. Rather, it would have come from looking at Maya and seeing in her eyes that she wanted to give them good 'office poses,' the better for her to sketch them later.

Either way, he knew that whoever could or couldn't be here today, those who were here were in every way appreciated for their presence. They helped him feel a lot more at ease than he might have done without them. Here I am, Gran… I held up my end.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners