Chapter 32
Neither Here Nor There

When he'd walked out of the store at the end of the night, Lucas had let out a breath. This was it, near enough. One by one, their anchors to Houston had been releasing. School was done, Maya had quit the band, they both had worked their last days at their jobs – Maya weeks ago and now him today – and so there was only one thing left. And it was going to be the biggest one yet. Tomorrow… Tomorrow, they were going to leave their house, and their roommates, and they were going to take off for Austin. With just this one tether left to them, it really got to feel like they were somewhere in between their old and new lives… neither here nor there.

Just a minute ago, as he was about to leave, Tracy Coleman had told him to wait a moment before hurrying back to her office. She'd returned, lugging a large box that looked very heavy, if the look on her face was in any way telling. Lucas had hurried over to relieve her of it, and she'd thanked him. She'd also made him swear to wait and open it only once he and Maya were together. He loaded the box into the backseat of the car now. As he did, he couldn't help but pause a moment, thinking about how there would soon be the baby's seat installed there. Part of him – and of Maya, too, honestly – had wanted to get it in there already, just in case. But with the move tomorrow, they needed the space. So the seat was waiting for them, at the house, back in Austin.

As he suspected it would be, the house was very quiet when he arrived. The only sound was the television, and it was kept very low. Maya looked up from where she sat on the couch when she heard him come in, with the large box weighed in his arms as he lifted it. He'd had to set it down just to get the door open. She was made curious enough by that box that for a moment she just watched him, before finally blinking and getting up from the couch.

"I'd tell you welcome to the land of the unemployed, but you already have your next jobs lined up…"

"Compromise, say I'm between jobs?" he offered, and Maya smirked.

"What's that?" she asked, indicating the box. He went toward the living room, setting the box down on the coffee table before turning to look at her.

"I don't really know," he admitted. "Tracy gave it to me before I left. She said I had to wait to be with you to open it, so I'm thinking gift, for the baby, or us, or all of us…"

"Well, we're here now, so…" she set her hand to the top of the box, looking innocently up at him. He just gave her a nod, and she pounced with a grin. She pulled back the top of the box, finding the contents had been hidden beneath another layer of cardboard. On top of that layer, there was a note. Maya picked it up, quickly read it, then handed it to Lucas with a smile.

For the young Mr. Friar, as you begin your journey…

Pulling back the cardboard cover, Maya and Lucas looked inside the box to discover what was easily several dozens of books, many of them small and thin, others slightly thicker… Plenty of material to stimulate a growing boy's mind, and send him off to dreams with a head full of wonder… Tracy had once said that she'd have them covered, but they hadn't expected her to come through quite in this way. This was without a doubt a wealth, a treasure. It made them think about sitting in that nursery, reading to him, and they had no words. It wouldn't be long now… a few more weeks…

"We probably shouldn't take them out of that box before we're over there, right?" Maya asked, hands kept close to herself like she didn't trust that she wouldn't reach in if given the slightest chance.

"It… would make more sense if we went through them when we can put them in the nursery, right?" he offered as a viable solution to her uncertainty.

"Right, no, yeah," she breathed out, though she was still looking inside… "Okay," she stuck the top back on the box. "Let's go."

They made their way upstairs and to their room. It didn't even feel like their room anymore. All their things were here, the ones not yet brought to Austin, but they were in boxes, or pulled into pieces. The only thing that was still intact was their bed, and that would be pulled apart first thing in the morning. They were going to put it in Pappy Joe's new room, it had been decided. As they climbed in now, Lucas just went ahead and pulled off the covers, leaving only the fitted sheet and their pillows. Maya would be too hot to touch them, and he didn't particularly need them either.

"It's our last night in this room and this bed, might as well make it look the part, huh?" Maya joked as she sat and slowly laid back, turning on to her side to face him as he sat on his side of the bed.

"Need anything?" he asked, watching her as she worked to find her position and get comfortable.

"Might need you to do your whole movie distraction thing for me," she whispered, looking up at him. "Not sure if I'll be able to fall asleep, too much pressure."

"Want me to read you a story?" he asked, lying on his side to meet her gaze. "We suddenly have a lot of material downstairs."

"No way, if you get to dig through that box then I do, too," she insisted, laughing.

"Alright, that's true," he nodded, settling in closer to her, as much as he could, with the divide of that great pillow. He looked into her eyes, thinking about the day to come, leading them all the way to their next night, one of the few they'd spend all by themselves in their house. Pappy Joe would only move in after the baby was born. He'd insisted that they deserved to have this time to themselves before everything up and changed for them. "So, anything I can do to help you sleep?"

"Tell me about your day?" she suggested, smiling as she thought aloud, "Tell both of us." This made him smile, too, setting his hand to her belly like he'd known already that he'd feel their sprout was on the move. The motion he felt gave him the impression that the baby was having himself a leisurely evening swim. "And if I fall asleep…"

"It'll be a good thing," he suggested.

"Yes," Maya agreed. "And you will just have to tell me the rest tomorrow, in the car, on the way to Austin."

"I can definitely do that," Lucas told her, leaning forward to kiss her before settling in for a bit of sprout talk. He addressed both Maya and their son to be, telling them about his last day working at the bookstore. He'd barely made it to when he'd unlocked and opened the doors for the last time before he'd looked up and found that Maya had fallen asleep. Just to be on the safe side, he carried on quietly for some time before accepting that she was indeed asleep. He moved back up to his pillow, turning off the lamp on the nightstand before facing his sleeping fiancée again. "Who's going to get me to sleep?" he whispered, barely above a breath.

They were both so excited for the next day, couldn't have it come fast enough, and yet his brain was presenting him this challenge, turning his excitement into something that would keep him wide awake when he needed to sleep, for rest's sake as much as for how it would make the time go by. He carefully slipped his fingers around Maya's hand until he held it. Closing his eyes, he focused on the sound of her breathing, slow and even. He let the sound draw him in, until slowly but surely it got to be that he matched her. He drifted off into dreams, and their final night in Houston went on its way, as well as either of them could have hoped.

Maya woke first, as she had been prone to do, because she had to go to the bathroom. She got up, carried herself sleepily off to deal with this, and finally returned. It wasn't until she sat on the edge of the bed again that she stopped and looked up for a moment, looked around the room… their room, although by now, seeing as they'd be gone in a matter of hours, was it still theirs or was it in a transitional period in the middle? Neither their room nor Rosa's?

It was still theirs, for now. So long as they still occupied it, this was still their room, and this was still their house.

"What time is it?" Lucas mumbled, just waking up, as Maya had been pulling herself back into bed, propping herself up against her pillows.

"Almost seven," she told him, reaching over to brush her fingers through his hair. It was as good as a beckoning call, inciting him to scoot over and lean against her. She smiled, carrying on.

"Hank will be here at ten," he stated. "That'll give us time to get ready, have breakfast, and get everything downstairs," he reflected.

"Yeah, it will do that, so we don't have to rush. We can just lie here for a while."

"We can do that," Lucas smiled, and she smiled back. For a few seconds they'd come to just lie there, watching her bump rise and fall with her breaths, feeling as though it expressed the activity and the life within. As much as they had been preparing, and counting down the days, getting them closer and closer to the move, they both knew that what they'd really been counting down to were the days before they'd finally get to hold their son in their arms.

"Oh, no…" Maya blinked.

"What?" Lucas asked, sitting up just a bit. Before she ended up having to tell him, there was a knock at their door and he understood: she'd heard movement from outside. Their moment of peace was to be interrupted.

"Hey, guys?" Dylan could be heard, speaking just loud enough as to be heard.

"You can come in," Lucas let him know, and the door opened.

"Sorry, it's just that your uncle's here," Dylan informed Lucas.

"Already?" Maya blinked.

"Well, they're all here, I mean… the whole family. And they've got food."

As advertised, Lucas and Maya made their way down the stairs a few minutes later to discover the Hillards were among them, and they had seen to breakfast, by the looks of it. Hank and Joseph would be following along when they'd start for Austin, in the truck. Lucas' cousin was very excited at the prospect of pitching in with the move. They had barely arrived that he wanted to go up and see about any furniture in need of being disassembled. His mother had directed him by the shoulders so he would sit and eat with the rest of them.

When they'd gone up there to empty out the room, Maya had remained downstairs, on the couch. The primary reason, the one she'd give anyway, was that she would either get in the way or risk getting hurt. Beyond that though, if she was honest, it was mostly that she couldn't bear to see the room being emptied out. It would have happened sooner or later, even without the baby, but something about it happening now, compounded with all the other things that weren't ending when they'd been supposed to end… She wouldn't see it empty. The next time they'd come, whenever that was, it would have become Rosa's room. Hopefully, she'd be okay with seeing it that way.

"How is the baby going to come out?" Maggie Hillard asked, as she and her brother Henry sat on either side of her, observing her with great curiosity.

"Uh…" Maya hesitated. Sooner or later, she'd found, little kids would want to know, and as usual she'd find herself alone with them, their parents off elsewhere, in this case assisting in getting hers and Lucas' things out of the house and into the truck and the car. Sarah and Evie were standing nearby, playing a dance game on the television. At her little sister's question, Evie turned and looked as though she would say something like 'oh, I know how that happens' and proceed to traumatize her siblings. Maya just caught her eye like 'please don't,' but then the game drew the girl back and they let it go. "Tell you what, later on, when she's not busy, you just go ahead and ask your mom, okay?

"I saw cats being born once," Henry informed her. She turned to him.

"At your mom's clinic?" Maya guessed, and he nodded.

"I wanted to keep one, but she said we couldn't because Dad's allergic."

"Yeah, that wouldn't work, would it?" Maya tried not to laugh, remembering how Lucas had told her that his aunt would have to go through a whole process, whenever she'd leave the clinic, to ensure she didn't bring any 'surprises' that would cause Hank any distress.

The girls' score barely had time to appear on the screen when they had finished their song before Maggie sprang up and declared that it was hers and Henry's turn to go. The two of them got up and were soon replaced by their older sisters.

"Can we be there when you have the baby?" Sarah asked. Of the five Hillard kids, she was easily the one who'd win most likely to pass for her sister.

"Well, probably not in the room right when it happens, but at the hospital, sure, if your parents will bring you to Austin…"

"I wish you weren't leaving Houston," Evie lamented. "We could have been babysitters." Maya laughed, just a bit, though mostly she was of a mind with her as far as the not leaving part. The closer they'd get to that threshold between here and there, her nostalgia would just rise to an all-time high.

"Maybe we can still work something out later on," she'd told the girls, which seemed to be enough for now.

It wasn't all that long in the end before the room was completely emptied, and everything that the two of them needed to take along with them had all been packed off into Lucas' car and Hank's truck. They were ready to go… almost ready…

"I don't like this part…" Maya whispered to Lucas as he came back up to join her after getting the last loads in. The very last things to go in the car, other than the two of them, would be the dogs, who had been acting appropriately antsy all morning, like they knew something big was about to happen.

"So, you just want to go without saying…" Lucas asked, knowing she would instantly shoot down the idea. Whether or not she wanted to do it, she couldn't leave without saying goodbye. It wasn't as though they would never see their friends again, never talk to them, but they all knew that, once Maya and Lucas were gone, and soon looking after their newborn boy, their lives would not be nearly intertwined as they had been over the past years. And they had preferred their lives that way, they really had, like that was exactly the way they all belonged.

Chiara had come along and embraced her, insisting that she, of all of them, was the least likely to break apart or make them break apart. But then it was like she'd just remembered what she 'owed' them, owed Maya especially, for having enabled her encounter with Sophie, and suddenly the thought of not having the two of them at the house anymore had gone and challenged her composure to the point of breaking. After that, there was no coming down the emotional rollercoaster of these goodbyes.

Dylan had come next giving his old friend a solid hug, the kind he might have given to Maya, too, if not for the baby of it all. Still, when he'd come to stand before her, there had been this almost held breath between them.

"You know I realized something?" Maya told him. He didn't know, he replied. "You've always been like the kid brother I'd wish I had when I was little. Just a… good-hearted little hellion," she laughed, especially as this made him beam with pride.

When Sophie had come and hugged Maya, she'd had to take several deep breaths, her face gaining in color to match her fire-colored hair. There were no words for how much her friendship meant to her, and near or far, Auntie Sophie would be all over that baby boy.

"We're coming over in a couple of days, okay?" she turned to hug Lucas now. "So, don't get ahead of yourselves trying to do everything. Just take it easy, settle in, and we'll be coming over soon."

"Got it," he promised, knowing as well as she did that this was her way of trying to contain her emotions. It only worked so far, as she retreated and was soon leaning to her girlfriend's side, as Chiara put her arm around her and let her weep quietly.

It was down to Riley now, and no one would fault them for looking like they'd both dreaded this moment most of all. They'd been separated by distance before, the first year Maya had been in Texas, they knew what it was like. Sure, it was only two hours now, hardly anything compared with the distance between New York and Texas, but their lives were about to change… so much more than before, and that left them to contemplate a whole new kind of separation. They stood there, holding on to one another without a word, for a few minutes.

"You start feeling anything that feels like labor, you call me," Riley insisted.

"Got you on speed dial," Maya vowed, trying not to leave the mess that was her face on Riley's sleeve. "Saving you a front row seat to that horror show," she managed a joke, and Riley nodded.

There was nothing for it now, they had to get a move on, get the dogs in the car and then…

"Wait! Wait for me!" a voice shouted from up the street, and they turned to find Rosa sprinting up the sidewalk, all the while carrying a bag she tried to keep from flapping in the wind. The weather hadn't gotten any better, and several of them showed it in how the effort of moving out had left them sweat drenched earlier. Rosa, coming up toward them at a fast run, reached them and looked like she would pass out for how out of breath she was. She gave Lucas a look and a tap to the arm like 'I got you last night' before turning to Maya.

"Want some water? Why didn't you call or…" Maya asked her as Rosa was attempting to catch her breath.

"Thought… had time… later… truck… hurry…"

"It's okay, I got it," Maya told her, so she'd stop talking and start breathing.

"For you," she shook her head, holding up the bag. "Careful… Wait to later…"

"Sure, yeah, I…" She was cut off as Rosa hugged her. Maya felt strongly that, even without words, she would know exactly what Rosa wanted her to know, just by that hug. She smiled, hugging her back. Dylan was like a brother, and here was Rosa, so like a sister that she'd just never seen coming… The difference here was that the feeling was absolutely mutual.

Trix and Lou had always been excellent car dogs, which was a good thing, with a long drive ahead of them. They were let into the back seat, the windows open on both sides. After saying goodbye to Tanya and the kids, Lucas and Maya got into the car, too. They took off just ahead of Hank and Joseph in the truck. It never got easier. Maya had done this twice before, leaving New York all those years ago, and then leaving Austin when they'd moved here for college… At least with this second experience, when she had genuinely been looking forward to the destination, this third time was just bearable enough that she could take a deep breath, and look to Lucas as he smiled and nodded at her, and rest her hands over and under her belly, and it would be alright.

"Next stop, Austin," she told him, and he got the car started and on to the street. Next stop, home…

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners