Chapter 42
Taking Roots

"My good sir, those are some kicky legs… Oh, yeah, some real stompers right here… I remember when you used to take those and just kick me from the inside… Tiny, strong legs," Maya beamed, as she worked to get Elliott dressed up. Her son was being extremely active today, like he knew they had visitors coming.

June was on its last days already, and neither Maya nor Lucas knew where the time could possibly have gone, that their baby boy was nearing on one month of being alive already. They could see it though, in him. These last few weeks had allowed Elliott to grow just enough that, though still fairly small, he didn't look nearly so new all of a sudden. He was doing wonderful, as he'd done from the start. All his check-ups so far had come through with glowing assurances from the doctor. He was right on track to go from a baby into a lively child, and it left his young parents with both relief and pride.

Little as they would go thinking that they were now pros, they could look back now, having attended to their boy for four weeks now, and feel just a bit more secure in their abilities to keep at it. They had been determined, before he was born, that they could do this, that they would be able to tend to him as they needed to. And then he'd been born, and suddenly it was less 'we can do this' and more 'we can do this, right?' It didn't seem to matter anymore that they had both looked after newborn babies before. This one was theirs.

Just a few days ago, they'd had their first proper panic in the middle of the night, believing that something was wrong with the baby. They'd been this close to taking him to the hospital, not needing to change out of PJs because they were in fact wearing normal clothes they'd fallen asleep in. But then Pappy Joe had finally been awakened, and he had come to take a look at his great grandson, with the calm of one who was not new to anything like this, and he had both promised and proven that there was no cause for alarm. After one strange and sleepless night, Elliott was good as ever and now sleeping soundly in his still frightened mother's arms.

"Starting to really get how our parents felt after the accident," Lucas had been right there at her side, dead tired as she was and still sort of wired. Maya had looked at him, at that small crease in his brow, and she could see it. He looked so much like she remembered his father looking that night in the ER.

"Yeah…" she'd replied with a mirthless laugh, her hand set to the baby's back, that she might feel the breath in him. "And it wasn't even anything serious this time, what's it going to be like when it is?"

Their night of reality checks had taken a bit of time in resolving itself out of their systems, but it was done now, in the past. And today… Today was going to be a good day.

"What do you think? Does this say 'I may be meeting some of my future best friends today'?" Maya asked, coming down the stairs with Elliott once she'd finished dressing him. "What are you doing?" she smirked, finding little of her future husband except what she could still see of him as he was kneeling to look under the couch.

"Just checking to see nothing ended up under here," he explained.

"Like what?" Maya asked, coming down the rest of the way.

"Pacifiers, socks… food… anything that might stink or go bad…"

"Our son is looking as cute as his little baby butt can be and you are missing it for a spot check you already checked… three times now," Maya informed. "You're also missing your bride to be, who showered, and put on some clean clothes for the first time in two days, she just realized." Lucas finally sat up and looked at her, standing across the couch with Elliott.

"Right, no, you're right, I'm just a bit…"

"Anxious? Yeah, right there with you," she promised, taking a seat while he stood and dropped again next to her.

"At the risk of sounding late to the party, you look beautiful," Lucas smiled.

"Your credit's good here," she promised, smiling back as she leaned in to kiss him.

"And this guy," he looked to their son as he pulled back. Elliott's head leaned to his mother just so that he stared to his father as he looked at him. "I can't stop smiling and I've seen you every day you've been alive, how do you think some of them are going to feel when they've never seen you in person before?" The baby was passed over into his arms, and Maya knew exactly what he meant about not being able to keep from smiling as she watched Lucas make faces at the boy staring at him with something like curiosity.

Looking around, she tried not to go down the same route that had led him to go checking under the couch again, but she was definitely scanning the place to see that everything was clean and orderly. Sure, they'd had people over at the house over the last few weeks, but those had most been their parents, and Pappy Joe, and some of their friends… The house hadn't always been at its cleanest whenever they'd have visitors, but they always did their best to ensure it didn't look like a tornado had blown through the place. Today… Today they both wanted it to look as good as it could look, not because their visitors would think any less of them, especially this group, but because… Well, it felt like taking a deep breath in and letting it out again. They were receiving guests.

The firsts to arrive were also those who'd travelled the furthest to get here, driving over from Houston. It felt like they hadn't seen each other in so long, which wasn't exactly true, but not exactly false either. Not for lack of wanting, they'd just been busy, all of them, tending to their own newborn children.

"Hey… Hey, Zola girl, look at you!" Maya was all smiles at finding the almost three-month-old babe in Willow's arms.

"Want to swap?" Willow laughed, looking to Elliott in her arms with a swell of emotion. She had yet to meet him.

"We need more hands than this," Maya considered the situation for a moment.

"Here," Lucas came along, taking Willow's daughter from her, enabling Elliott to be passed to their guest before then passing the girl to Maya. "I'm going to go and give him a hand," he indicated Lion over at the car before jogging out.

"Hey… Hi… Yeah, you and I haven't seen each other in a while, have we?" Maya looked to the Obi girl who stared back at her with that sort of vacantly content look about her. She was somewhere new, but she also felt secure, so she bowed her head to rest it against the one who held her.

"I remember when she was this small…" Willow hummed, gently rubbing at Elliott's back as she held him. She missed it, though it was the kind of thing you could handle missing because here was your kid, who had passed through that moment in her life and was now reaching new heights.

Looking to one another, Maya knew Willow was thinking much the same thing she was. It didn't seem so long ago that they were sitting together in the Houston house on Halloween night, both of them pregnant at the time though only one of them knowing it for sure while the other would have to wait and wait before finally finding out the truth. For Maya, having Willow there, just a couple months ahead of her all along had really gotten to feel sort of… indispensable. Now here they were, both of them mothers.

"Are we the first ones here?" Willow asked as they navigated the dogs, eagerly yapping at their feet for finding visitors, one of them they recognized from long ago.

"You are, yeah. Pappy Joe took off for the day, got picked up by my old professor…" Maya revealed, which pulled a smirk from Willow. "I know," she laughed, looking down to little Zola. For as long as it had been since she'd held the girl, and how young she still was, to find her responding so well to her, like she recalled her… She kissed the girl's hand, gripped around her finger.

It wasn't long after the guys had come along with Zola's things that there came another car, soon to be liberated of more baby things.

"Oh, I know that look," Lucas went up to meet the arrivals, ready to help with whatever needed carrying. "That's us two weeks ago," he smiled as Aaron Tran climbed out of the passenger seat.

"If that means I'll look like you two weeks from now, I can take it," Aaron nodded. "Besides, what's another sleepless night when it's for her," he went and opened the back door, carefully removing the seat where his and Marius' two-week-old daughter slept. "Look at her, one quick drive and she'll have you think she's peaceful, but it's an illusion, the girl has lungs on her like she wants to sing for the opera."

"Yeah, don't worry about it, she can start a band with ours once he gets into it," Lucas nodded back to the house. "Need me to grab anything?"

"We have travelled surprisingly light today," Marius appeared from the back of the car with a bag hanging from his back and one more in either hand.

"If you wouldn't mind taking her though," Aaron indicated the seat. "I really should be taking it easy with this wrist here," he held up his hand. He had become another member for the Delivery Day Injury club, taking a spill upon learning that their surrogate had gone into labor.

"No problem," Lucas assured him, taking the seat and starting toward the house. "Hey there, Simone," he smiled at the small girl seeming on the verge of waking up again. Much as Aaron had suggested, the car ride had gotten her to sleep, but now that this had stopped, she was ready to give another show. "Okay, okay, let's see if this works for you, too," Lucas hummed, giving the seat the slight motion he'd tried to replicate from when they'd be riding in the car. It tended to work for Elliott, but whether it would do the same… "I think we're good," he whispered back.

"I don't know how you did that but you are teaching me before we go or I'm staying until you do," Aaron declared in a reverent hush.

As they reached the house, the new fathers were embraced by Maya, who introduced them to Willow and Lion before being met with little Simone. Setting the three babies side by side, eleven-week-old Zola Obi, four-week-old Elliott Friar, and two-week-old Simone Tran, it wasn't long that the new parents were snapping pictures to add to their already sizable collections.

"How's Samantha doing?" Maya asked.

"She's doing well," Marius replied with a nod. "She asked me to say hello and that she would call you soon when I went to see her for the bottles. She would have liked to be here, only…"

"No, I understand," Maya promised.

They had wondered about what would happen once Samantha had the baby, once it was put in the arms of her fathers and was no longer her responsibility. She may have been her biological mother, but she was not her parent. After Simone had been born, her parents' new friends had finally been told about the decision the three of them had made, Samantha, Aaron, and Marius. The couple was all for having Samantha in Simone's life, if that was what she wanted, and it was what she wanted, it was. Only, she realized it would be difficult not to look at that little girl who had her eyes and not think about what it had been like to carry her, to feel her move, and kick…

So the choice had been made that she would keep away from her, for a few months at least, to try and give herself the chance to breathe, and accept the separation. She hadn't seen or held Simone since she was born, but she sent her milk through Aaron and Marius, who'd come and tell her how she was doing.

The rest of their guests arrived all at once, driven in by Ainsley Ellis. Along with her son, Cameron, she'd accompanied the two of their little group who had yet to give birth. By the looks of her though, it looked as though one of them could have gone into labor right here and now.

"I know, I know, I'm huge," Billie Lawson laughed, like it was the best thing in the world.

"You alright?" Maya chuckled, heading out to meet her.

"Will be better once I'm sitting down," she breathed as they hugged. "Three more weeks…"

"Could be less," Maya pointed out. "Or more…"

"No, no, see, we made a deal, the young one and I. Bastille Day, it's perfect, ain't it, sweetheart?" she asked, rubbing her belly.

"Okay, go on and sit," Maya pointed to the house before approaching the girl who'd just gotten out of the car while Ainsley unbuckled her son from his seat. There really was no hiding that belly now… "Hey, Brianna," she smiled. "How are you?"

"Hot," the sixteen-year-old breathed.

"Yeah, definitely. Come on, it'll be better inside."

She still had a little more than three months to go. She would have turned seventeen by then, not that it would have changed much of her situation. Her parents were trying to be supportive, and on the whole they were. But they did not approve, of any of it, and she could tell. Maya had been hearing all about it, had insisted that the girl could and should call her if she ever needed to talk. Her boyfriend, Sanjay, was in much the same situation with his parents, and they didn't even know that there was a chance Brianna's baby was not his.

And then there was potential father number two. From what Brianna had told Maya, he was proving himself true to his word so far. He didn't want anyone knowing the baby might be his, so long as there was a chance that it wasn't, but because there was a chance that it was his, he would check in with her whenever he could, asking how she was doing, how the baby was doing… And he had been doing his research, Brianna was sure, from some of the questions he'd ask. It was reassuring, but at the same time it left the young mother to be sort of perplexed about what would happen once they knew for sure.

It was a really good day, for all of them. They had created this little cluster almost by chance, with Maya and Lucas at the heart of it all. When it came down to it though, it was support, with all of them going through a lot of the same things at the same time. It came about that day that Ainsley had offered the spare room in her apartment for Brianna to take, if she ever felt she couldn't stay at home anymore. She could stay as long as she needed, her and the baby both once it was born. Brianna hadn't made a decision, but looking at her it was almost certain she was genuinely considering it.

X

"What time are they coming over?" Lucas asked, moving out into the living room, expecting to find Maya and the baby and instead finding an empty couch. "Maya?" he called up the stairs.

"Nursery!" she called back, and he went off to find her.

She stood in the midst of boxes, pieces of furniture in need of assembly. Elliott was in her arms, yawning his way closer and closer to sleep, while she looked around the room. She had that look in her eyes, that creation look. And the way she was staring at the walls, he had a good idea what she meant to create.

"Shouldn't we wait until after they've come and gone from here? Until it's his nursery again?" They were literally supposed to turn the place into a room for Eliza and Wyatt today. The furniture was theirs, part of their new sets for their new rooms once they moved, in replacement of the ones they would be leaving in New York. It had been delivered here, so they might use it while they stayed here for the next month and some days. Their parents were coming over for a visit and to help with the assembly.

"Yeah… I guess…" Maya replied. Nothing in her voice suggested she wasn't trying to figure out if she had all the materials she'd need in that moment in order to create the mural she'd been conjuring up in her head and in her sketchbooks for months already.

"Maya… We have to get the room ready, they'll be here tomorrow," he reminded her.

"They will," she nodded, still looking at the walls.

"And once we start putting everything together…"

"I just… I've been wanting to do this for so long. Not just wanting, I need to do it. For him," she looked down to their son in her arms. "I want him to have his place, with everything as it should be…"

"It won't be his place until after your siblings are gone again. And that's only if we're ready to move his crib back here when that happens. Are we ready?" he asked, coming to stand with her, with the baby, clinging to the front of her shirt.

"Not yet, no," she shook her head. "He's good where he is now," she smiled.

"What if… What if you made him like… a mini mural?" Lucas suggested after a moment. She turned her head.

"I'm listening."

"Come on," he led her out into the hall and into their room, to the corner where they'd set Elliott's crib. Now with Eliza and Wyatt coming to stay with them, they had moved a lot of the baby's things in here, the changing table, the rocking chair… "Right there, on the wall, maybe the ceiling over it, too?" he pointed.

"You want me to paint on the wall here?" she asked, amused. "The crib's not going to stay there forever."

"No, but… it'll come back," Lucas looked at her, and she smiled, knowing what he meant. "And it's like you said before, eventually we're going to have to paint over the other one, in the nursery. Don't you want to have a little something, to hold on to, when we're done with cribs?"

"Dude, that is low, coming after my mama hormones?" she squinted at him, brushing at their son's fine hair.

"Does that mean you don't want the mini mural?" he smiled, knowing very well the answer would be…

"Of course I want the mini mural. Here, I need to start making sketches," she held out the baby, who was happily taken by his father.

"Come on, Sprout, let's give your mom some space so she can do her thing."

By the time the Friars and the Hunter Harts arrived, the sketch was done, the crib had been moved out of the way, and the paints and brushes had been brought in from the basement. There hadn't really been anywhere for them to set all of that up when they'd moved in, what with Maya being so close to giving birth, and then after the baby had been born… Sometime this summer, she was really going to have to figure out what she would do about her art supplies.

And by the time anyone came upstairs to see what Maya was up to, already the base of her mural was taking shape. That shape was that of a tall tree. She was in the midst of tracing out the trunk, and its branches, which would spread to the heights of the wall and up to stop at the edge where they met the ceiling.

"My goodness, that is a big tree," Melinda Friar declared, as she and Katy Hart came to poke their heads in. Maya turned to look. She had that spark in her eyes. It was the biggest art project she'd gotten to do since before the baby, and she had almost forgotten how much she loved it all.

"Hey! Yeah, it'll be great, won't it?" she asked, looking back at the wall. "It's a bit hard to explain right now, but I'll need you guys later, okay?"

"Anything you need, baby girl," Katy promised. It was good to see her like this. She was more relaxed now than she'd been for a while after she'd found out she was pregnant, after she'd nearly lost that baby. She was five months along now, and all indications said the baby was out of the woods, though of course she was still being careful, still being looked after… They'd found out it would be another boy, and none was more thrilled than MJ, who was going to have a 'baby bother.'

"You can stick around if you want," Maya told her mother and her future mother-in-law. "Are the twins and MJ…"

"Pappy Joe is showing them a card trick downstairs," Melinda informed her, which made her smirk before getting back to her paints.

As Eliza and Wyatt's room was coming together across the hall, Maya carried on painting her tree. She'd had plenty of time to pick up new tricks from the internet while she'd been meant to keep it relaxed toward the end of her pregnancy and the beginning of her parenting days. One of the things she had looked into a lot was becoming handy here. Her tree was looking more and more realistic, to the point where one might have believed it to be real at first glance.

"Okay…" Maya breathed, stepping back. "Have to wait until it's dry now," she nodded, satisfied.

"Wait, you're done?" Katy asked. "Aren't you going to put some leaves or something?" Maya smiled, walking over to her mother and taking up her hand, palm out, fingers spread.

"I am."

When the tree was good and dry, Maya had returned to the room, escorting the first of her helpers. Nellie, Gracie, and MJ all looked up in awe at the great, tall tree in the corner of the room. One by one, her young siblings were shown an array of colors and the picked one. In turn, Maya would then spread that paint on one of their hands, more than one of them melting into giggles because it tickled. Once their hand was ready, she would lift her sibling up until they could press their hand against the wall, along one of the branches of their choice. After this was done for all three, and after their hands had been cleaned again, before they could touch anything and get paint everywhere, Maya had gone in for the next phase. She traced the outline of the leaf around the hand print, filling in around it so that it could still be discerned within the leaf on the branch. Finally, she would trace the names of along the edge, just enough that it could be read from up close.

The exercise would soon be repeated with each of Katy and Shawn, and Thomas and Melinda, and Pappy Joe, who finally got to grasp what her vision for this mini mural was. In weeks and months to come, whenever any 'missing leaf' would come by the house, they would be taken up to the room, they would get their hand painted, and a new leaf would join the colorful tree looking down on Elliott's crib.

The next two, after the ones who were there the day the tree went up, would be Eliza and Wyatt Hart, when they arrived from New York the following day.

"Are you sure you don't want me to go and get them on my own?" Lucas asked as he and Maya got into the car. She was looking back to the house, to where Pappy Joe sat on the porch with Elliott.

"I'm sure, I should be there," she insisted, turning back to him. "We won't be gone long, and… a-and I have to do this eventually so… Let's just do it now." It would be the first time she went anywhere without Elliott being no more than up or down a flight of stairs from her ever since he'd been born. Lucas had done it several times now, especially as he'd started to work, Monday through Friday, but Maya…

"If you're sure you're ready," Lucas told her, wanting to be absolutely sure. She looked at him, and back toward the house…

"It's silly, I mean, he's only five weeks old, it's not like… I just… He's not going to think that I… that I'm leaving him, is he? That's just not… He can't be old enough to think that, can he? But… But what if he…"

"Hey…" Lucas reached for her hand. She turned to look at him again. There was worry all over her face, bordering on panic. "Hey, hey…" he unbuckled his seat belt and moved closer to her. "Hey," he pressed his forehead to the side of her face.

He'd sort of expected this to be a big step for her, but he hadn't seen this coming, this fear made up of childhood issues and a bond forged of nine months with their sprout in her belly. She wasn't just concerned about leaving him, she was scared, not even for herself but for him. She knew it was irrational, but that didn't stop her feeling it. And now they really had to make a decision, one way or another, someone had to go and collect her siblings from the airport. They were coming unaccompanied, and if there was no one there to collect them…

"What if… What if we stay connected with him this time, while we're gone?"

"Connected how?" Maya asked, blinking.

They spent the whole ride to the airport with Maya holding her phone in front of herself, the call connected on the other side to Pappy Joe, with Elliott, looking at their respective screens. They were apart, but they were together. It wasn't going to be something they could or should do every time, but… it was helping.

"Do you think you're okay to hang up now?" Lucas asked once they were parked in the airport lot. Maya was still looking at the screen, at Pappy Joe pretending as though Elliott was gripping his finger so, so tight that it hurt, as though he was hoping to trigger a laugh out of the baby boy. He was okay. He was safe, and he had no reason to believe his parents wouldn't come back. He didn't even have the ability to believe that was a thing people did, leaving their children.

"Yeah…" Maya finally breathed, once and another time. "Yeah. Hey, Pappy Joe?" He blinked, his act interrupted. "We'll see you when we get back, okay?"

"Absolutely. We'll be waiting out here, while your boy breaks my finger," he smiled at her.

"We'll try and bring you back some ice," Maya smiled back.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners