A/N: If you want to check it out, the title comes from a song of the same name by Van Morrison, which I listened to as I was writing this chapter!

Chapter 50
These Are the Days

"Hey, alright, let's see who it's going to be today, yeah?" Lucas lifted Elliott from his crib, looking up to the tree and its many leaves. "Who is it?" he asked in a hush. At this point, the best he could do was look and decide that the first leaf he saw was The One, though he imagined there would come a point where Elliott was old enough to point his own finger, to make his own choice, even if he wouldn't be able to read yet. Today, the first name that Lucas saw was… "Grandma Katy, huh?" he smiled, sneaking a look to the bed. "You're not even trying to pretend anymore, are you?" he asked Maya. She gave an exaggerated display of 'sleep.' "Not buying it," Lucas declared, moving to where he might sit with her as she turned toward him.

"Oh, hey, good morning," she still played. He chuckled as he turned about, allowed her to look upon their son, too. Maya reached over, grasping the baby's foot. He made a small noise they just felt more and more was some recognition of who she was. "Good morning to you, too, thanks for finally going to sleep a few hours ago," she told him in a sweet whisper. The two of them had spent a good long while downstairs, in an effort to let Lucas get some sleep. He would have stayed up with the two of them, but she had insisted on him staying back. He needed to be well rested, as today would be his first day of school out here in Austin.

It felt like it had been a million years since they had finished out their second year of college back in Houston. Maya had been 'ridiculously pregnant,' as she would put it, and handling the summer heat to the best of her ability, and they were preparing to move out here, to their house, to settle in before the baby was born. This had all happened a bit sooner than they'd anticipated, but they'd gotten through it well enough, hadn't they? Now… Now he was about to start his third year, which would also be his first year, as he was new to this university. The prospect was just a bit nerve-wracking, but he held on to the fact that he wouldn't be going in solo. There was Ramona, he knew her, and he felt confident that he would find new friends.

Maya, meanwhile, would be back here with their boy, and part of Lucas felt like it wasn't fair that she would be forced to fall behind, even if the reason was entirely valid. The summer had felt like one event after another, keeping their lives in perpetual motion. Elliott was born, and they'd started on their way as parents. Then, Maya's siblings had come to stay with them, so they'd looked after them, too. Now, her siblings were settling into their new home, with their parents and their grandmother, and into their new lives. Camp had drawn to a close by now, but school wasn't far away for them either.

And the wedding was now six days away.

After Kermit and Abigail had come and taken charge of their four young roommates once more, the whole of the focus at the house on the lane – other than getting Elliott's nursery back as it had been, and looking after him, of course – was that big day, September 3rd… They had already agreed that, seeing as Lucas would be one week into his new semester by then, they would just have to put a pin into any honeymoon plans. But now, as they were counting down the days, they had made plans. They were going to have that honeymoon over the Christmas break. They didn't know how they would fit Elliott into all this yet, but they would find a way. They would make it something real, memorable, not just a weekend off at a local hotel.

"I think you should take this story today," Lucas told Maya. "Unless you want me to tell him all about when Grandma Katy didn't want me in the house or something…"

"Come on, you have known my mother long enough to have something more than that, don't you?" Maya chuckled.

"Yeah, but I still think you'll have something better than I would," he pointed out, and she had to admit that was fair. Lucas turned Elliott around in his arms so that he'd be leaning against his chest, the two of them looking back at her. "Your audience awaits," he informed her.

This made her laugh, and that made Elliott's face lift into a smile. The sight of it was nothing short of marvelous, where Maya was concerned, and looking down at the baby, Lucas echoed this feeling. Pressing a kiss to the top of their son's head, he looked back to Maya, and he knew her heart was just as full as his own. It felt like the culmination of everything from the day those tests had turned positive. To be sitting here, in their home, with their son, who was just… a wonderfully joyful, healthy, loved little fella, days away from being married, everything… everything that could make them aware of how lucky they had been, to get to be in this moment, in this feeling.

"Let me tell you about how your Grandma Katy and I came to Texas…" Maya reached over and grasped their son's little hands.

X

The days that followed would go by, it seemed, in the blink of an eye. One minute they had been sitting in bed with their son, talking about his grandmother, and the next it was Saturday night, also known as the night before the wedding.

Lucas had five days of class under his belt now. It was just as well that the first week of any semester was generally not the most busy, or else he might have had problems. There was just a bit of an awkwardness in the fact that the other students in his classes had clearly been in classes together for two years already, while he was brand new to the university and to their classes. He was so very glad for having Ramona there. The very first day, she had introduced him to her friends, Gabriela and Ariana.

They had welcomed him at once. On the first day, he had been told how Gabriela was from Florida, and Ariana from New York. They had both come to Texas for college two years ago. They had all met, the two of them and Ramona, on the very first day of class, after some guy on a bike had nearly run Gabriela over, and both Ramona and Ariana had been nearby and hurried to her to see that she was alright. Once they had realized they were headed to the same class, it was a done deal.

The moment they had heard about the fact that he was getting married in less than a week, they wanted to hear all about it, and then when they had heard about his having a baby, they wanted to see pictures right away. They reminded him very much of Ramona in that great warmth she had, though while her warmth felt like a crackling campfire, the other two were the warmth that came from a roaring blaze. It all depended on how you interacted with it, though Lucas soon came to the conclusion that anyone who was considered a friend of theirs was safe from being burned, and that was where he existed.

He would work extra hard to get any reading or small assignment he might receive completed between classes, or just before bed at night, so that, whenever he came home at the end of the day, he could help Maya with the last minute wedding preparations. There wasn't too much of it yet, of course, and all the classes he'd had, all the professors he'd been introduced to, left him to believe he would quickly get to like his new university, no matter how much a part of him would still miss his days back in Houston, with Bishop, with his uncle…

As soon as he would get home at the end of the day, he would put all thoughts of school aside and join Maya with the wedding things. This would generally be him and Maya and Pappy Joe, but also his mother and father, or his mother and Maya's mother and father, or his mother and Abigail and Elizabeth Hart, or his mother and Kermit, or his mother and a couple of their parent group… By Wednesday, Maya had joked that they might as well have his mother sleep at the house, if she was going to keep on showing up every morning shortly after he'd gone off to school.

Today had been his first day where he could be home from morning to night, the last big push before the big day. Well, maybe not until night… Just after dinner, Lucas had all but been carried off to go and spend the night back at his parents' house. It didn't matter that this marriage that was less than twenty-four hours had already been consummated, the proof presently gurgling in Maya's arms. He was not going to see his bride again until she came walking down the aisle.

"Can I at least say goodnight to my son?" he has protested just a bit, and so his parents had gone to wait for him in the car.

"What about me? Do I get a goodnight?" Maya smiled as she walked over to him and handed Elliott over. The baby had that look in his eyes like he was about to cry, like he knew his father was going away, or maybe that was just Lucas projecting over the realization that he had never spent a night away from home, from Maya and their boy. Elliott sometimes had a knack for not sleeping his night when his parents needed their sleep the most, didn't he?

"Hey, hey, we're all good," he kept Elliott close, did his thing until he could feel him calming down. "You going to write me later?" Lucas whispered to Maya, like the two of them were on some covert mission.

"You bet I will," she whispered back, and the look in her eyes told him that was more than a promise.

"Is it weird that I still can't believe that tomorrow…"

"Tomorrow," she repeated the word with a nod, like it was an incantation, a call to power. "I still remember the moment you asked me, and…"

She was interrupted by a call from Melinda Friar, standing outside, and the two soon-to-be spouses shared a private laugh. Rather than incur the wrath, they shared a brief kiss before Elliott was handed back over to his mother, and Lucas stepped out to join his parents. He turned back as he reached the car, signing 'I love you' and '366,' and Maya did the same, with a gentle swaying motion as she rejoined her arm to the hold over Elliott. It was only hours, and they would be sleeping through most of them anyway.

X

Maya woke up on the morning of September 3rd, and one after the other she came to two realizations. The first was that Elliott had slept peacefully through the night, though he was now awake and crying. She climbed out of bed and went to get him, carrying him back to the empty bed, where the second realization came… Today was her wedding day. The house was quiet now, but she knew it was only a matter of time before she was carried off to have breakfast and start getting ready, so she was going to enjoy this bit of quiet while she had it.

"You are going to look so good today, the people out there won't know what his them," she whispered, looking down to Elliott as he lay there, latched on to her and entirely unaware of what made this day different from any other day. "Now, your dad's not here this morning, but…" she reached her arm out to her phone and tapped through it until she found what she was looking for. "If you close your eyes, it's like he's here." With another tap, Lucas' voice was heard coming from the phone as the recording played.

"Morning, sprout… and morning, Maya," he added after a beat, which made her chuckle. "Today, I'm going to tell you about one very important person on that tree. I'm going to tell you a story about your mom, and the day I met her for the very first time. Now, it might sound silly to some people, but I will stand by it. The day I met your mom, I fell in love with her…"

Maya suspected that her mother had heard the recording and waited outside until it was over before coming into the room to get her to come down for breakfast. She had spent the night here, along with the twins. Pappy Joe had let Katy borrow his bed, while he spent the night at the Cassidy house. It was only natural to have her stay here, with her daughter, to see her through her wedding day, and being that she was rounding on seven months of this pregnancy, she deserved a bed over a couch. Said couch was occupied by the maid of honor, who was now downstairs with the flower girls as they were already having their breakfast.

"Look at us," Katy noted, sitting on the edge of the bed, a hand to her belly where her fifth and youngest was kicking away as she looked to her first and eldest, there with her own first born in her arms. Maya knew what she meant. It seemed not too long ago that it had been just the two of them against the world and now… Now their lives were so different, and different for the better.

"I was fourteen, she was thirteen. I was sitting at school with your Uncle Zay, and then there was this girl, standing there, not too far ahead of us. See, we were waiting for this new girl that was coming to our school, and I was going to be her guide, to show her around and help her get familiar with the building, and the city, too, because she wasn't from Austin, not even Texas. She was from New York, which was so, so far away from Texas.

"When she turned around, she saw us. She saw me, and I saw her. I didn't know who she was, didn't know her name, didn't know the sound of her voice, or her laugh, didn't know what a great smile she had, or how funny she was, how kind, and smart... and sneaky, very sneaky. Do you see it? Do you see that smile on her right now?"

They were still halfway through breakfast when Melinda Friar came along, the rest of the bride's party not far behind. Maya had stolen a glance to Riley like 'don't let them take me away from this food,' and Riley was on it. She hadn't been named her maid of honor for nothing. Maya was left to nearly shovelling her breakfast down before Lucas' mother insisted she hopped in the shower so they could get her hair and makeup done afterward.

About as soon as she had the door open after coming from the shower, she was made to come and sit and it was off to the races. Her mother sat nearby, with Elliott in her arms, looking on with a smirk as she remained outside the frenzy. She trusted everyone around her would have her looking the way she wanted to look, but there was still a tiny part of her that was afraid she would look in the mirror and find that her hair stood inches above her head.

"There's a drawing on our wall, a drawing of that first time we spoke to each other. Your mom made it, she's a very talented artist. I think if you look at it, she's really captured that moment between us. I can't say what was going through her head at the time, but I know what was going through mine. Here was this beautiful girl, and I know there are a lot of things that probably matter a lot more, but for that moment it was all I had. When I say that she was beautiful - that she is beautiful, even now, especially now - it's not just because of how she looked, no. A face is just a face. What makes it beautiful is the person, who they are on the inside, and your mother...

"I didn't know a thing about her, except in a way it felt like I did. There was just something about her... I think, deep down, we were both at a point in our lives where we both needed someone so much. Maybe it would have been anyone, maybe someone we already knew, but it was me and her, and I don't know what would have happened if your grandma had not decided to move the two of them to Texas, but she did, and because of that we met, and we fell in love, and years later you came along."

They wouldn't even let her look until after she was completely ready, dress and all. It was hanging there for her to see the whole time, and all the while she had been feeling the anticipation rising. It had fit perfectly, just as promised, when she had gone to pick it up, but even now she was starting to get paranoid, like what if something had gone wrong between then and now?

Everything was fine though. The dress had come on, and as Riley zipped her up she felt a bit of those nerves melt away.

"Shoes… the shoes," Melinda came forward and set them on the ground before her, sounding like everything she was already seeing was making it difficult for her to keep it together. Maya lifted up the skirt enough that she would see her feet and slipped them into the shoes.

"Can I look now?" she asked, taking a breath.

"Turn around," Nadine smiled, and so she did.

"Now, I know that all feels like I left out a lot, but if I told you about the whole story, all the years, we would be here for a very long time, and your mother would be late for a very important thing that's about to happen today. That's okay though. That means I get to keep telling you that story over some more mornings, and your mother can keep pretending like she's not listening to every word instead of sleeping. I think she's smiling again, is she smiling again, Sprout?

"Anyway, what I will tell you for today is this day... It came earlier than any of us expected, but it's happening now because of two things. The first is that it was going to happen sooner or later, because I could not imagine spending my life with anyone else than your mother. That also means you, and any little brothers or sisters that might come along. The second reason why your mother and I are getting married today is you."

Driving to their venue, it felt as though she really just couldn't wait much longer. She wanted to be there, wanted to walk down that aisle see Lucas there. At the risk of sounding weird, she couldn't wait to see him lose it at the sight of her. He absolutely would start to cry, and she knew… she would be right there with him.

"Where does Elliott go?" Nellie asked as she sat across from her big sister, with her twin across from their mother. She was very impressed by the car and how their seats were 'turned around.'

This had been a matter of some debate. They knew they wanted him close by, but it would have been sort of ridiculous to have him either in her arms on in Lucas' arms as they went ahead and said their vows. They had debated having him be with any of their parents, but eventually they had chosen to put Elliott in the care of his most honored godfather, who also served as best man that day. For that reason, he had been sent toward the venue with his paternal grandparents, as trying to fit his car seat into this car would have been too much of a hassle anyway. It was another one of those things where being away from him was not how she would have wanted things to be, but Maya just surged on. They were nearly there.

"When I say that it's because of you, that's not to say that we had no choice. We could have waited. It might have made Granny Mel or Pappy Tom a bit... unsure... but it wouldn't have been up to them, just us. We could have waited, but we didn't want to, I didn't want to. You, my little Elliott, you came to us as a surprise, but you were the best one we ever had. It's like I told you, I fell in love with your mom the day I met her, and right now I know she's probably looking at you with a nod, because she did the same thing. And in all those years, we ended up right where we are now because we loved each other, and we knew the future we wanted. We would get married someday, and we would have children, and we would spend the rest of our lives raising them and loving them together. You may have come ahead of time, but there was not a moment where you were not wanted.

"The day we knew you were coming, it was like you were giving us permission to start on that future a little earlier than we'd planned."

"Now I know you're used to being on stage, but how's it going, are you nervous? Do I need to tell you to picture everyone naked?"

"Dad," Maya scolded Shawn, who just smirked, as they stood together, waiting to go forward. "Also I'm fine, thanks," she let out a breath.

"You go ahead and you squeeze my arm if you have to," Kermit declared, standing opposite.

"I don't think you get just how much I am ready to go out there, Dad," she gave him a look before turning on a smile, which she shared with both the men standing on either side of her.

Even months ago, when Lucas had proposed, she could not have believed it if someone told her that she would make her way down the aisle not only with Shawn Hunter leading her forward – which had been a given – but also with Kermit Hart – who had been… much less than that. But now here they were, and there was no doubt in her mind that this was exactly the way she was meant to make her way down to meet her groom. When she had made the decision, she had gone to Shawn first, intending to explain why she would do this, why she had to. But then she had barely started talking when he'd cut her off. He already knew, and he was one hundred percent on board.

When she had asked Kermit if he would join Shawn in giving her away, he had been struck silent, and he had just pulled her into a hug. He'd held her for a while before pulling back and telling her he would be honored, with happy tears falling from his eyes. Even now as he stood with her, she could see how much it meant to him that he was here. He had come a long way from the young man who had walked away from his family. He was never going to do that to her again and they both knew it.

"Alright, this is it… All set?" Shawn asked, as they got their signal.

"I am telling you, I have been ready for a long time," Maya took one deep breath before the doors opened ahead of them.

"Before I let you go, because your mom is going to need to go and get ready soon, and she really needs to hurry up and eat before my mother gets there and cuts her off... I'll just say one more thing. I know that you're not going to remember today, just like I know you won't remember any of what I'm telling you now. But one day, when you're older, you're going to know. Your mom or I will tell you about today, and even if you won't remember... You will have been there, with us, the day we made our own personal promise a very public one. At the end of the day, neither of us will be saying anything we don't already know. We love one another, and we vow to spend our lives together, and like I told you, Elliott... that's all we ever wanted, maybe not from day one, but somewhere along the way..."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners