A/N: Daisyangel, I am sending you a PM about Alex!

Chapter 61
Experiments in Baking

It was on the whole predictable that the introduction of marriage and babies would have a way of adding a layer of domesticity to a person's life. Even so, both Maya and Lucas would be left to take in some of their days and think 'wow… when did this all happen?'

Maya had one of those today, in this moment. She was standing in the kitchen, working on a filling for the cake she was making. She'd put on the apron her mother-in-law had bought her a few days ago, in honor of her 'burgeoning business,' unsure whether it was for genuine coverage from stains or a feeling like even from a distance Melinda Friar would sense if she didn't wear it. The thing had come to rest along the curve of her bump of thirteen weeks, which seemed to take the fact that it was not forced into hiding like a reason to appear even bigger than it already was. Meanwhile, from where she stood, mixing away, she could see in the living room, where Pappy Joe had dozed off into a nap on the couch, while Lucas walked/danced around with their son. Elliott enjoyed this very much, if his laughter wasn't making it obvious enough.

Watching them, Maya could just sense this feeling of contentment in her husband, as he entertained their boy, and that feeling echoed on to her, and… Yeah… That was a big dose of homey sentimentality, and she found she was beyond happy to bask in it. None of their lives may have been headed exactly the way they had believed them to be headed a year or so ago, but it was in no way for the worse. It was a new, unexpected happiness.

Over the last week, Maya had been spending countless hours, any hours she could in some way dedicate, aside from looking after things here at home, with Elliott and the Bee, and helping her mother with Alex, and helping her father so he could rest, in researching. This was not her research for Professors Robinson and Patil, no. This was baking research. She'd compiled a list of techniques and types of cakes and frostings and other elements that she wanted to learn to make, learn them until she had them down. Now, she was working through that list, or at least she was starting to work through it. This was day one. It wouldn't necessarily make for the most cohesive finished product, but she had a couple of tasters on hand who subscribed to the theory that, if it was edible, they would be up for anything.

"I could get you one of those bells," Lucas teased as he came into the kitchen, Elliott in one arm and giving all the indications of being ready to eat right this moment, to grab a bottle and get it ready for him. "Then when there's something for us to try…"

"You could run in here ahead of your grandfather who can't go as fast as you?" Maya asked, smirking. He couldn't even manage to turn on that Huckleberry face and try to claim he would never do that, being a southern gentleman and all. "If you want to pick one of those up right now, I won't stop you, so long as you also go and get a couple other things?" she asked, turning to him with her very solid innocent face and a short list she'd been compiling.

"I'm taking Pappy Joe to my parents' after Elliott's fed, I can go and take care of that for you," Lucas nodded, earning himself a brief kiss in thanks.

"Going to see Pappy Tom and Granny Mel, huh?" Maya turned her smile to the baby now cooing for attention. "Guess I'll just have to test everything myself," she shrugged, resisting the urge to twist her smile into a smirk aimed to her poor cake-deprived husband.

"Not even a little, huh?" he asked, too amused to be hurt.

"Well… maybe… just a little…" she amended.

After the three generations of Friar men had gone off to visit a fourth, Maya had returned to her mission for the day, which involved a number of fruit fillings. She would go on to make a simple cake and frosting combo to go along with these, just to see how it all came together. The way she saw it, she had months to really take her time and explore, possibly do a few cakes for people she knew, before really seeing if she was ready and still wanting to take it a step further. What really mattered to her now was that it made her feel like she was accomplishing things, which she hadn't really done in a while. That almost sounded bad. She hadn't been doing nothing, no. She'd been looking after her son, her home, and her family. But this, the baking, and the prospect of her work with the professors, all appealed to that side of her she'd been forced to set aside, good reason or otherwise.

"Oh, well, you two are here for this, huh?" Maya looked to her feet, where two eager dogs stared back at her, both of them giving that familiar shuffle they made whenever she or Lucas or Pappy Joe would be cooking. They called it the Gimme Shuffle. "Right, let's see…" she scanned the counter, with the variety of fruits she'd collected for the day. "Can't have this, but these are good for a couple of moochers like you," she smirked, crouching with bits of apple in both palms. It wasn't long that Trix and Lou were munching away. "Right, back to it," Maya stood back up.

Her heart just about leapt out of her chest with surprise, pushing out a shout which in turn made the intruding visitor screech, while the dogs abandoned their apples in favor of barking, only until they realized this was not a stranger.

"Cara! What… Don't just sneak up on people, that's…" Maya breathed, blinking back the shock. Her little sister didn't say a word, but then her eyes had travelled down and done all the talking. As she had been prone to do, when taken with surprise or overwhelming emotion, her hand had gone to her belly, and if it hadn't been visible, which it was, this would have given her up, too. Cara looked back up to her with a grin.

"I knew it!" she declared, hurrying to embrace her big sister, who could only receive her.

"Little spy…" Maya sighed. Alright, she couldn't not laugh.

"I'm sorry that I startled you, I just wanted to see for myself…"

"And breaking in was the best idea?"

"I have my key," Cara pointed out. "And if you didn't know I was coming, you wouldn't wear a big shirt or anything like that to cover that up," she pointed.

"Nothing gets by you," Maya squinted at her.

"When were you going to say?" Cara wondered, sounding like she assumed the baby was much further along than it was. "When are you having it?"

"Uh, May again, early," Maya told her. Cara's eyes widened. "Yeah, I know, I got bigger so much faster, huh? We were going to tell at Thanksgiving. We wanted to do Christmas again, but well…" she gestured to herself. "But you know what, this time, you guys are all here in Texas with me, and I'm so glad. We can go through all of it together, yeah?"

"I can go with you when you have to go to the doctor's," Cara stated at once, with such a smile on her face, and Maya chuckled.

"Sure, if you want to. Oh, check this out," she smiled, lifting the headphones sitting around her sister's neck back on to her head. Disconnecting them from Cara's phone, she plugged them into her own, pulled from her pocket. A few seconds later, Maya pressed play, and into her little sister's ears flooded the steady sound of a heartbeat.

It reminded her of the day she had told her mother about Elliott, playing the recording for her. This was different of course. She'd been scared to tell her mother; she was genuinely excited to tell Cara.

"Wow…" Cara laughed, pressing the headset closer to her ears.

"You can't tell Eliza and Wyatt, not yet," Maya told her after putting her phone away. Before she could piece together the fact that the others, including Sam, must have already known, Maya gave her a look.

"I swear," Cara nodded.

There was something so… uplifting… about how happy Cara was to learn about the new baby. To her, there was not a problem on the horizon, no complications, no worries, there was just a new niece or nephew for her to love and look after, a few months from now. Sure, she was still a kid herself, and it was natural for her to think that way, to only see the good parts, but that wasn't a bad thing, was it? If she could see the world that way, then maybe that was how the world could be, if she kept believing it. There might be bumps in the road, but that promise would still exist.

"So, back home, got any homework lying around?" Maya asked her little sister, brushing a blond fringe from her face. Cara shook her head. "Chores?"

"Done, done," Cara promised.

"Well, that's great, because I could use an assistant… and a taster."

"I'm not very good," Cara hesitated, making it clear how she was looking forward to the part where she got to eat things but had little enough faith in her abilities as to expect anything worth eating in the end.

"When I was your age, I could probably have poisoned someone eventually, the way I was going," Maya pointed out, which made her sister laugh. "But I kept trying, and I got better, didn't I?" Cara smiled and nodded. "This is what today is about. I'm trying things, so I can learn. You can learn with me. If this whole cake thing takes off, this could be a permanent thing, with a pay day for you, too."

"For real?" Cara blinked.

"Yeah, for real, when have I lied to you?" In response, her sister nodded to her belly. "That doesn't count, okay? That's more of a right time kind of thing. Let's get you an apron."

When Lucas came back along to drop off the items from Maya's shopping list, he found the Hart sisters hard at work over a simmering pot,

"I see how it is," he told his wife with a smile. "I left on errands and you replaced me."

"Well, she's very good," Maya shrugged, turning a look to her proud little sister. Lucas was clearly just now noticing how Cara stood there, next to Maya, who could not have fooled anyone into thinking she was not pregnant. "It's alright, she figured it out," Maya told him. "Very efficient spy. Elliott's back with your parents?"

"With my dad and Pappy Joe," Lucas nodded. "My mother was out, visiting with yours," he explained.

"That's really kind of her," Maya smiled. Of course, Melinda Friar would be out lending a hand to her son's mother-in-law and the new baby.

"We should give her the cake," Cara tapped Maya's arm as the idea came to her.

"The test cake?" Maya asked, and Cara nodded. "You were going to take that one home, show Dad and Abigail and the other kids…"

"We can make another one. Mom's more of a lemon fan than raspberry," Cara told her.

"She is that," Maya agreed. "Okay, let's get it finished and packed up then."

They had made the cake together. Once they'd finished their raspberry filling, Cara had wanted to be able to see it all come together while she was still here, so they'd turned to the cake part. Once again, her doubts as to her baking abilities had flared up, but they'd resolved themselves in listening attentively to her sister's instructions. And, by the end of it, they had a very decent looking cake, and some not at all gloopy frosting, and so they had used it all to create the assembled structure sitting in the fridge. They pulled it out now, getting to work on adding some decorations before finally getting it ready to go with Lucas when he'd head back to his parents' house to pick up Elliott and Pappy Joe.

"Do you know what that is?" Maya asked her sister, after Lucas had taken off with the cake. "That is the very first Caya original creation." Cara laughed. "Okay, the name needs work, but you get what I'm saying."

"Yeah," Cara nodded before pulling her into a hug, which Maya happily reciprocated.

"Alright, we need to get back to work, time for lemons."

As uncertain as Cara had been, and though they'd had a few problems along the way, by the end of the afternoon Maya and Cara were left very satisfied for the results they'd obtained. Cara had a new cake to bring back home with her when Abigail came to pick her up, while Maya had a handful of different fruit fillings to show for her day's work, though she left it for both Lucas and his grandfather to get a look at themselves. For her part, she was exhausted and she had missed her baby dearly, so she'd taken up residence on the couch with Elliott asleep in her arms.

"Okay, I didn't think I liked blackberries, but I might be coming around to them now," Lucas informed his wife as he joined her on the couch.

"Cara said the same thing," Maya smiled, lightly rubbing at the baby's back.

"You also might want to keep that apricot one away from Pappy Joe, he got that look in his eyes like he might eat the whole thing with a spoon. You two were busy today."

"Like a couple of bees…" she agreed. "We're going to make it a thing, me and her, when I get the business going. It'll be like a family thing." Now she imagined Elliott, a few years from now, him and his little sibling, helping her in the kitchen, and it made her happy all over again. "Do you ever get that feeling, like you knew something would be good for you, whenever it happened, and when it did it was just… so much better than everything you imagined?"

"Every day," Lucas nodded, looking at her with their son.

"How was it out there today?" Maya asked, smiling.

"I got to see two grown men turn into the biggest clowns for this boy here," he informed her, which had her smile growing. "My dad kept doing whatever it took to make him laugh, and then Pappy Joe wasn't about to sit there quietly, so he got in on it, too."

"Tell me you have evidence of this."

"Photo and video evidence," Lucas nodded, moving to sit next to her. He had to take the volume down low, so not to wake the baby, but already it was something, and Maya looked very happy to see it.

"You wouldn't know it by looking at them most of the time, but they are seriously just goofy, the both of them…" she shook her head, trying to keep quiet for Elliott's sake.

"They really are," Lucas smiled back at her, even as a thought came to him. "I know my parents must have a ton of videos from when I was a baby, somewhere…" By the look on Maya's face, it might have been in his interest to get his hands on those as soon as possible.

"I've always been thankful to have your family in my life," she reflected. "But more and more now I'm so… so happy that they are in his," she looked down to their sleeping son. "And that they'll be in the Bee's… and whoever else comes along."

"How many are you thinking there might be?" Lucas wondered aloud. They'd always known they wanted children, plural, but already just to have the one had been something, and then quite by surprise the second had followed… Now that they were looking down the barrel of having two children already, the question had come to feel just that much more warranted.

With the question put before her, Maya had to admit she had never really thought about it either. It had always been a sort of blurry idea, which was easy enough when there weren't any actual children yet. Now that they had one, and another on the way, suddenly it felt like there were two answers. There was the number they might have called up from dreams, the number they might have summarized as their hearts' desire. And then there was the other number, the one that came with concrete evidence of what it was already going to cost them to raise one child and now two children by the spring, now as they grew from infancy into childhood, and onward, and onward… and then what it would mean each time they added another.

Of course, all of this had happened so fast, so early in their lives, and much as neither of them regretted it, much as they were faring well enough, thanks to the support of their families and their own accomplishments, they were still looking at it from this point in time. Lucas was still in school, and eventually she would be going back, too, and they would finish their degrees, they would start to work, more than they did at the moment…

They were resourceful, both of them. Lucas, he always went out there looking for the best way to provide for all of them, and she had never lacked in ideas for projects, for new ways to express her creativity and at the same time add to their household. They had wanted from the beginning to be self-sufficient, and even though they had received some financial assistance from their parents, not to mention this house they were living in… they were putting in a vast majority. They wanted to keep it that way, wanted to tip the scales even further.

So, with all that, what was the reality number? The dream number, well… she might have been contented to have any and all children they were lucky to have, one way or another, filling their house to the brim until they had to expand, and expand. In reality…

Looking over at him, she held up a tentative hand, four fingers out, thumb tucked into her hand but unfolding and refolding as though she kept on oscillating between the two. Four, maybe five. Lucas smiled. He'd been trying to think of his own number, but he couldn't make up his mind, and that… that felt like a good one to him.

"Yeah?" Maya asked. "It's not too much?"

"I don't think so, not if you don't," he promised.

"I don't know, it feels like a lot, but… You grew up an only child, same as I did…" He nodded. "And you turned out great, yeah?"

"I would like to think so, yes."

"I look at my siblings, the Harts and the Hunters, all of them together… They have something so good together, and there's going to be a lot more when they grow up more. You and me, in this house… we could make that happen for them, we could give them that life." Oh, it mattered so much to her, he could see it, and if it wasn't what he wanted, too, it might have swayed him. Instead, it only made him want it all that much more, especially with her. His response came in the shape of his putting his arm around her shoulders, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. She hummed, eased by his nearness.

"Let's just focus on getting this second one into the world before we get too deep thinking about three, and four, and maybe five?" he suggested.

"One at a time," she agreed.

"Unless we get to number five and end up with twins… or triplets…" Lucas joked. Maya looked back at him.

"If you've just jinxed us," she pointed her finger at his face.

"What, you don't want to be surrounded by seven tall sons?" he doubled up, much too amused by the look on her face, which went from 'don't you dare' to 'oh, hold on…'

"Well, we only have the one now, and he just peed on me," she whispered, holding his gaze as he fought not to laugh. "Now you get to change him while I go and change myself."

"Yeah, sounds fair," Lucas got up from the couch and took up the baby, carrying him carefully away. "What happened to your diaper there, bud?"

"Seven tall sons…" Maya muttered as she followed, frowning at her shirt. "You can't say things like that around here, come on…"

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners