Chapter 145
Brothers' Day

Maya didn't know exactly when she dozed off, but when she woke again, she knew without ever looking out the window that the storm had broken. The rain had stopped, the clouds were clearing… The sun was looking to start its descent before very long, and for a moment she thought she heard her father's voice, singing softly. Kermit… She must have still been asleep, dreaming… or she was feeling the effects of some painkillers…

She was not dreaming, only in the process of waking. As the voice continued to pull her from her slumber, it became clearer, more defined, and she finally recognized the singer just as she spotted him standing by her bed, holding his brand-new nephew.

"You sound like Dad…" she mumbled. Sam turned his head to look at her and blinked.

"I do?" he asked.

"I thought it was him for a second, either that or I wasn't… all there," she gestured toward her head. "How long have you been here?" she asked as she wondered what time it was.

"Like half an hour?" Sam guessed.

"So, the rain didn't stop that long ago, huh?" Maya looked at his head, his hair looking like it had been rained on. "Who else is here?"

"Oh, no one yet, I think. They'll be on their way now though," he spared a look out the window. "I was at a friend's house, promised Mom I wouldn't come until things calmed down out there."

"Did you keep your word?" Maya asked, squinting at him. Sam hesitated.

"I was close," he insisted.

"Mm mm…" she smirked, brought back to smile as she watched him turn his attention back to the baby. He looked at her again like he thought he should hand him over, but she gave him a small gesture to never mind and keep as he was. Jamie looked like he was very comfortable where he was. He was awake, she could just hear him, see his eyes blinking…

"Lucas was checking on Elliott and Noah, so I said I'd stick around. I think his dad went to the gift shop. And Phoebe and Stella went to the cafeteria."

"So, Uncle Sam's on the case."

"Well, he's easy," Sam promised, smiling down to his nephew.

"Is he? That's good," Maya chuckled.

"Can't believe you had him on the kitchen floor," Sam laughed, too, giving the baby his best expressive face.

"Wasn't what I was planning either, but here we are… That'll be a story for when he's older."

Lucas soon returned, reporting that his mother was finally on her way with the boys. Apparently, Melinda had tried not to let her grandsons know that their baby brother was coming or that he'd been born. She was well aware that they were sort of stuck at the house, unable to reasonably get out on the road while the storm was still going, and as soon as they'd know about the baby, they'd want to get out there and see him as soon as possible. The problem here was that Granny Mel did know and, oh, she was beyond anxious, so no amount of distraction tactic could work too long before those little boys realized that something was up. The best she'd been able to do, once the word had gotten out, was to convince them to settle down and make some pictures for their mother and their tadpole brother.

"I wish I could have recorded. Sam was singing to him when I woke up…" Maya told the returning Lucas after her brother had passed the baby back to him and gone in search of a vending machine.

"Yeah?" Lucas smiled down to their now sleeping son. Oh, he kept getting that rumbling in his chest when he looked at him, ready to cry for the love of him. Jamie… They had three children now, three… He didn't think that it would properly hit him until he got to see them all together. Until his mother and the boys arrived, he was very glad to focus on the newborn.

"Yeah… I thought it was my father for a moment there… Didn't mind the mix up," Maya admitted. "It felt like he was here with us, to meet his new grandson."

"Maybe, in a way, he was," Lucas smiled back at her, and she nodded. "Getting knocked by emotions, too?" he asked her, and now she laughed. "Which is completely fair, all things considered," he promised as he came and sat next to her.

"I thought so, too," Maya hummed. She leaned her head to his shoulder and reached over to join her hand to his, supporting their boy. "I mean, we make some cute kids, huh?"

"Am I going to say it or is it too soon?" Lucas turned a whisper to her, and she frowned, unsure what he meant until his face raised into a smirk. She pointed a finger at him. Don't you dare. He mouthed it anyway. Seven tall sons. They were three down for sure. Their eventual heights were still to be determined, though both Elliott and Noah were absolutely charting on the taller side at every check-up. As for Jamie, he was as tall as his big brothers had been the day they were born.

"You know what, I'm not going to fight it anymore. If that's what… the universe… wants, then game on. All jokes aside, I will take them all, just the way they come."

"We both will," Lucas agreed as he traced his thumb lightly along the baby's cheek. He had his head, cradled in his hand, feeling the fuzz of barely present blond hair. "I wish I could have been there…" he quietly spoke. "I know it was out of our hands, but still…"

"I know," Maya assured him. "Even if you weren't in the room, you were absolutely with me, with us. And now that you're here, that's really all that matters, that and having the boys here…" she sighed.

"They'll be here soon."

They only had to wait another ten minutes or so, and those went by in the blink of an eye, caught up as they were in fascination of their baby boy. And for all that, they both swore they heard the elevator's bell far off down the hall and knew when it was their most awaited party, making its way toward them. After passing the baby over into Maya's arms, Lucas slowly got up and walked to peer into the hall. The moment they saw him, Elliott and Noah bolted over to him and were swept up like two armloads of feathers. Bringing up the rear, Melinda Friar was striding toward them with that great big Granny Mel smile, happy tears fully loaded and ready to drop.

The boys' immediate concerns shifted this way and that, first expressing how there had been that big storm, and it had been loud, and dark, but they had not been scared because they had each other, just like he'd showed them. Then they asked him if their baby brother was really here, and could they see him? They had both made him a picture! Where was Mommy?

"She's back there, with the baby, but he's asleep, so you have to be quiet, remember?" Lucas told them in a quiet voice. Elliott nodded and pressed his lips together, so Noah did the same. It got a laugh out of their father and, oh, he had really missed them in just those few hours apart. It was such a big day for their family, they needed to be together, and now here they were at last. Lucas spared a look to his mother, nodding to her as a way of telling her to breathe and asking if she was ready.

"Where's your father?" Melinda asked.

"Right here, Mel, right on time," Thomas appeared, coming down the hall to meet them with a tray of coffees and creating a genuine 'crisis' in his grandsons, who had just been instructed to stay quiet. He balanced the tray in one hand, the better to wave at each of them with his grandfatherly smile. That worked fine, so they waved back at him. Finally, they headed into the room.

"Alright, guys…" Lucas whispered. He approached the bed, coming around to the side where he'd been sitting, the better to deposit the eager boys next to their mother. They were as eager to see her as she was to see them, and the emotions only became more pronounced as she watched them discover their new brother, held in the crook of her arm and starting to stir.

"Hey, I missed you guys," Maya whispered, stretching her free arm to wrap it around the small boys. Noah was nearer, and he leaned to rest his head near her heart, so Elliott leaned in behind him, his head finding the space between her elbow and shoulder. Suddenly, she was here, and she had all her boys near her… and it was everything. It made the whole of the mad tale of her kitchen floor delivery a hundred percent feel… worth it.

"Baby brother," Noah quietly reached out his hand and touched the baby's head.

"Yeah, that's him," Lucas confirmed with a grin, standing behind them.

"Hi, tadpole," Noah told him. Lucas and Maya exchanged a look, and she tipped her head to him. Go ahead.

"His name is Jamie," Lucas leaned in to tell the boys. "Jamie Nathaniel Friar." They wouldn't know yet that Nathaniel Friar had been their great great grandfather, Pappy Joe's father, that it was also his middle name. Now, both Jamie and his great grandfather would be J- Nathaniel Friar. If not for Joseph Hillard, they might have considered giving their boy that name. This was their best work around, dropping in the middle name, finding another J name for the first. They couldn't wait to tell Pappy Joe.

"Mommy, can I hold him?" Elliott asked.

"Sure, you can, sprout," Maya smiled. At this, Noah gave her a look they recognized as his way of asking 'me, too?' "One at a time, alright? You watch how Elliott does it and then you'll get your turn, yeah?" Maya told him, and Noah nodded.

"Here, we'll bring you guys over to the couch there and Granny Mel will bring your brother, yeah?" Lucas suggested, turning a look to his mother. Just like that, he'd orchestrated the means to let her do what she'd been waiting to do, too, if only for a few seconds right now. There'd be so many other opportunities after this one.

So, while Lucas picked up one and then the other of the boys, stretching time by 'flying' them over to the couch and making them laugh, Maya carefully held out the newborn to his grandmother. Melinda collected him even as she set a kiss to her daughter-in-law's forehead, passing her a sympathetic smile that promised a lengthier talk later. Maya just smiled back. She could easily 'pardon' the woman's attention being captured by the baby boy. He briefly started and fussed at the transfer, but Granny Mel's charm was easy, and in no time, he was a happy camper all over again.

"Oh, I know those little ears, yes, I do," Melinda crooned as she walked her way around the bed and toward the couch. "Let me see now," she observed one and the other boy on the couch. "Yes, those are the ones," she gestured to the both of them as they showed her their ears. "Alright… sweet Jamie baby… Here you are, now, watch his head, that's it," she breathed as she deposited him in Elliott's waiting arms.

"He's tiny," Noah stated as he watched. Jamie's foot had come peeking from his blanket, and Noah touched it, catching it in the palm of his extended hand.

"Hi, Jamie," Elliott tipped his head this way and that, giving big smiles to his little brother. It had been nothing short of a great pleasure and honor for both Maya and Lucas to watch just how close their boys had been in their bond of brotherhood, and now to watch them as they met the new addition to their family, they could just about see those new threads finding him, bringing him into that unit of theirs. Here was their new brother. He was one of them.

The baby had been taken from the eldest down to the new middle brother by the time their next visitors arrived. By pure luck of timing, the remainder of Maya's siblings, both Hart and Hunter, arrived at the same time along with their respective parents. This brought a sudden influx of flowers, and toys (a couple of bears, but more than anything a handful of frogs of various shades, calling on the 'tadpole' of it all), along with so many people as to be almost too many people. Several of them had to contain their unavoidable excitement before the noise went and got to be too much. But much as they tried, the baby started to cry, enough so that his brothers became at once startled and uncertain about what to do, so their father stepped in, collecting the little one and starting at calming him until Maya held out her arms and Lucas brought him over to her.

"We're so sorry it took so long to get here, but with the rain, and the kids were all over the place…" Katy approached the bedside and leaned to give her daughter a brief side hug before getting a look at the baby. "We would have made it here earlier to meet you guys otherwise. How did it go, everything's good?" she asked, and Maya opened her mouth to speak but turned to Lucas. He shook his head and his eyes confirmed what she'd assumed: they didn't know. They just thought she'd gone into labor, and he'd brought her here. "What is it?" Katy asked, not following the silent exchange.

So, for the first time, Maya and Lucas got to 'tell the tale of Jamie.' They explained – speaking their parts in turn – about Maya's going into labor back home, yes, only to have it progress so fast that it was a near miracle she didn't have to ask a pair of teenage girls to deliver her baby. Instead, it was thanks to a pair of paramedics – one of them an old friend of theirs – that the baby boy had been born back at home, on the kitchen floor.

"I don't really remember what it looked like when we left, but…" Maya turned to Lucas as the notion hit her and she winced. He just laughed.

"I'll take care of it," he assured her.

The next little while involved a lot more discussing the circumstances of Jamie's birth, and passing the boy from one pair of arms to another… Grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts, and uncles… They all wanted their turn and they all got theirs, all the way down to the soon-to-be three-year-old Alex Hunter. Shawn sat down on the couch, holding his son in his lap as he was handed his new nephew. This was possibly one of the few if not the very first newborn he held, and to observe the delicate curiosity he displayed, they had no doubt that, just like Elliott and Noah had become as good as brothers to the littlest Hunter, so would he likely be with the littlest Friar. Unlike his other nephews, when Jamie started to fuss and cry again, he did not freeze up or panic. He just kept holding on to him, pressing his cheek lightly against the baby's and waiting… and soon the boy had calmed down.

"Alright, baby brother, nicely done," Maya laughed. "Can we borrow him?"

By the time Pappy Joe and Patty managed to make their way out to the hospital, it was evening. Everyone else had already left for home, leaving only Maya and Lucas and their three boys in the room when the couple arrived. They were so sorry they hadn't been able to get out here before, but again, with how the day had shaped up… No one minded the delay, not even a little. They were just happy to know they'd come and, really, this more intimate introduction between the couple and their new great grandchild felt very right. They got to see him, and hold him, and when they heard his name… They didn't have to explain a thing. Pappy Joe was not one to play favorites, not in the slightest, but they could have forgiven him if he showed a particularly instantaneous connection to little Jamie.

"I'll tell you something, little man. You and your brothers, each one of you… to get to be here, with you, from the day you were all born… I cannot wait to see what you all become, and I am glad that I get watch it all happen, that I get to be your Great Pappy Joe."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners