Chapter 54
Starting Small

Somewhere in the middle of this week, Lucas had gotten to think of how Elliott was very close on being five months old, with the month of October crawling to its end day by day. And from there, the notion that this was only one more month away from having him reach six months had also come into play. Six months… half a year… It just didn't seem possible that their baby boy could be coming on half a year already. Only the blink of an eye ago he had been a tiny crying thing, placed in Maya's arms, and another blink before that, the two of them had been having what could be described as a sampling of pregnancy tests while a Halloween party raged on below. There was no way…

"Hey, check him out, Action Man!" Pappy Joe chuckled, looking to Lucas and then back to Elliott, on his tummy on the couch cushion next to him where his great grandfather could keep a close eye on him, even as he seemed off in his own world of adventure, making unintelligible noises but overall very jolly. "If you ask me, the kid's going to be a natural rider someday."

"Yeah, okay, if you say so," Lucas chuckled, coming into his son's line of sight, where Elliott saw him and smiled at once. If that was not a sight to look forward to at the end of the day… "Yeah, I missed you, too, Sprout," Lucas picked him up, bringing him close and kissing his cheek. Elliott stared back at him, poking at his face with his fingers. "Okay, not the eyes, we talked about this," Lucas smirked, dodging the curious hands.

"It's in his blood," Pappy Joe maintained his argument. Lucas looked to his son, thinking of all the times Maya had called him Huckleberry and teased him, and thinking about his grandmother and her stables… Maybe that was true, but he wasn't about to imprint some career plans on Elliott when he couldn't even speak yet, or walk, or express his own desires.

"Yeah, well, so are a lot of things," Lucas smiled before handing his son back to Pappy Joe. "Where's Maya?"

"Upstairs, napping, while I'm on the clock," he replied, making faces at Elliott all the while. The boy grasped at his beard. "Oh, he's strong!" Pappy Joe intoned. Lucas smiled, watching the two of them, before heading up the stairs to find his wife.

The last couple of weeks had been hectic, just a bit. By chance, Kermit had been able to see his doctor just days after the dinner where he'd agreed to go in, on Maya's plea. He'd been about to be scheduled to be seen in November, but then there had been an opening, and he had taken it. As agreed, Maya had gone with him. After the appointment, though they had yet to hear the results, Maya had clearly been operating on the assumption that they would be getting bad news. She'd been going to her father's house almost every day, lending a hand where she could, the better to take some of the load off of Kermit. He hadn't wanted her to go out of her way, but then he got to see his daughter, and his grandson, too, so he could accept the trade-off in the end.

He had gotten his results a few days ago, if they could call it that. All the doctor could say was that the tests had been inconclusive. He agreed that some of what Kermit had been feeling could potentially be seen as troubling, but it still wasn't enough for him to warrant so much worry. Until they knew more, all he could prescribe was for Kermit to take things easy. This in turn left Maya to carry on her visits, looking over her father, helping Abigail, and the kids, and her grandmother. Lucas could see that the whole thing was starting to wear her down, and he wanted to help, wanted her to slow down, but what was he supposed to say? Don't help your family because your father might be sick again? There was no way, but still he… he wanted to help, and he could only do so much. He was swamped, too.

Coming up to their room, he found Maya right where his grandfather had said she would be, on the bed, though she was not sleeping, or at least she wasn't sleeping anymore, if she had slept at all. She was just lying there, petting Trix as she lay next to her, while Lou was at her feet. She turned her eyes up and spotted him.

"Pappy Joe says Elliott is going to grow up to be a rider," Lucas informed her with a smile as he walked up. Maya gave a sound that suggested she'd been hearing the same thing. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he looked at her with thinly veiled concern. She needed the rest, she did. Beyond her father, looking after Elliott wasn't always playfulness and tummy time, though they did their best to hold on to those parts the most. She worked so hard to give him the best of everything, the best of herself. He might not remember this time when he was older, when she'd have gone back to school, to work, but the effects would still be there, growing on, like ripples in a pond. "Maya…"

"Lucas, we need to talk…" she cut in before he could continue. He looked at her before taking the dog and setting her on the floor, much as she resisted. Lucas drew himself closer while Maya sat up.

"What's wrong? Is it your father? Did something happen?" he asked, taking her hand.

"No, that's still the same as it was," she shook her head.

"Your mom?"

"No, no, she's good," she promised. "It's about us, okay?"

"Us…" Lucas asked, unsure where this was going. There definitely was something going on, and whatever it was, he had no idea, and he felt as though he was supposed to. "Is it me, did I…" he started, but was cut off with a finger to his lips. He got the message, had to let her speak. She was staring back at him now, and whatever was going through her mind, it wasn't coming any closer to turning into words. The longer it took, the twistier the path of her thoughts became, she looked… Well, she looked like she was about to cry. "Hey…" he touched her face, setting aside this request for silence. "What's the matter?"

She stared at him a moment more before moving to rise from the bed. He followed her with his eyes as she went to her dresser and pulled something from behind the framed photo of the two of them and Elliott on the day they'd gotten married. She returned to stand before him and handed the hidden object over to him. It never registered until after it had reached his hand, until he looked down and saw that clear plus sign in the middle of the stick.

"I was going to wait until you came home, I swear I was, but I just couldn't wait anymore, I… I had to know…" Maya told him, as he turned stunned eyes up to her, then down to the stick, and back at her again. "Surprise…" she half-heartedly intoned. He looked at the stick, the pregnancy test, back to her, down to the plus sign, and her… "Going to give you a minute there, I was kind of doing that, too, for a little while after I took it," Maya pointed to the test. "Still kind of doing it in my head," she looked down, trying and failing to figure out what to do with her hands.

"Maya, how…"

"Do I really need to explain it to you, we've done this before," she shook her head to herself. "I'm sorry, the sarcasm is hard to control right now, whatever I say, it's not…"

"But we… and Elliott…"

"How is it that you look more shocked now than last year… What am I saying, it hasn't even been a year, Lucas. This time last year, I was also pregnant. My mother… my mother hasn't even had this kid she's about to have, and I've had two different ones growing inside me, how… What am I supposed to do?" she asked, feeling just on the edge of hyperventilating. "I have to go back to school, I have to finish, to graduate. I have to work, especially if we have to provide for not one but two kids by next spring, I… There's too much going on in my brain, I want to be happy, I want to freak out in a good way, but I can't stop… I can't…"

Seeing her start to panic now, it felt like Lucas' mind snapped back into place, just enough that he thought to rise from the bed and embrace her. He wrapped his arms around her, and he kissed her, and she kissed him back, and for several seconds the world washed away. The frenzy settled down, chaotic waves receding until all that was left was the two of them… no… not just the two of them.

They were having a baby… another one… He couldn't be sure of the math, but in all likelihood, this one and Elliott wouldn't even be a year apart from one another, or just barely. It was… so much to think about, but right now, for this one moment at least, they had to look at it from the point where there was no panic, only joy. And that place absolutely existed. That place was the one where they had always envisioned having more than one child, more than two… All the small details that could deviate this one thought, from age, to money, to time, to plans and careers and education, those needed to wait while they focused on the one thing at the core of it all.

When the kiss slowed and broke apart, they looked to one another, and Lucas looked to the test still in his hand, and the reality of it left a smile on his face, which spread on to hers as well. He hugged her again, pressing kisses to her shoulder, which made her laugh.

"We're going to have to tell him," she pointed out.

"Who, Elliott?" Lucas asked, looking up so he could see her.

"No," Maya laughed. "Your grandfather. He lives with us, and if this goes the same way as last time, it won't be long that I'm going to be sprinting off to the bathroom in the morning and oh, I am so not looking forward to that," her face scrunched up at the memory. "He can keep a secret, can't he?"

"Pappy Joe? Absolutely, yeah," Lucas assured her, looking to the stick now like he didn't know what to do with it. Maya took it back and returned it to its hiding place. "Hey, come here, sit, tell me…" he took her hands again, led her to where they could sit together on the bed. "How long have you known, or…"

"I started to suspect…" she nodded, understanding. "I guess it was yesterday morning, when I went to see Brianna at the hospital."

Their young friend had gone into labor in the middle of the night, delivered her child when all of them had been asleep. She hadn't been alone, she'd had Ainsley with her, but she didn't want to make anyone run out of bed and show up at the hospital when they all had babies of their own to look after. They would have gone anyway, given the chance, but that didn't matter anymore. Brianna had her baby, and now the newborn had several eager quasi aunts and uncles eager for a chance to say hello, to bring gifts… Upon arrival, she'd found the young mother asleep, while the equally young father sat nearby, with the bundled up baby in his arms. He looked as though he'd been awake all night, which he likely had been, but all the same, he only had eyes for the newborn, didn't look up until Maya whispered his name.

"Hey…" she smiled. Jay looked around, realizing suddenly that it was morning. "Everything go alright?"

"Yes… yes, very much," Jay nodded, looking back to the baby. "Look at her…" he smiled. Maya happily did so, all the while trying not to have it look like she was checking what they'd all had no choice but to be left wondering. There was no need to for any kind of paternity test, was there? All they had to do was look at the baby to know which of those two boys had been the one to get Brianna pregnant. Maya had looked, and the girl may have been his daughter in his eyes no matter what, because he loved Brianna and would be with her regardless, but now they knew she was also biologically his as well.

"She's beautiful, Jay, congratulations," Maya told him.

"Her name is Zoey," Jay had revealed, when he had passed her over into Maya's arms.

Looking to the sleeping newborn, Maya had been taken down a road of memories, of her own newborn child, just a few months ago. It felt like an eternity had passed and also no time at all, there was no middle ground. She had never been so aware of the complicated state of time until she'd had a child, even when he had been little more than a sprout growing in her belly.

When she had left the hospital room, promising she and Lucas would visit again when Brianna was awake, she'd walked down the hall and just felt so… spent. Yes, the last few weeks had been complicated, with her father's situation and looking after Elliott, everything… but deep down there was a part of her that kept feeling as though this wasn't all of it, couldn't be. She had been tired, sure, exhausted, but she was a new mother… She and exhaustion were like frenemies at this point. They didn't care to be near one another, but they had begrudgingly started to work together.

This was different, but also not unfamiliar, was it? No, she'd felt this way before, she'd…

Oh… No… No, that couldn't be… She couldn't be…

She'd pushed the thought out of her mind for the rest of that day. Out of her mind might have been an exaggeration. It couldn't completely leave her, it would always be there, constantly on the periphery, like a stalker, tapping at the window, begging to be let in. Up to that point, she could still tell herself that she was reaching, that she was just overloaded, and it wasn't what she thought it was, that would just be… soon… it was so much, so soon…

By the next morning though, this morning, her window stalker had started putting more ideas in her head. What if this wasn't a baby, what if she was sick? What if this was genetics, spinning the wheel and landing on her? That idea had come and knocked the breath from her, looking to her son as she'd gone and taken him from his crib and it was as good as letting the stalker in. Fine. She'd get a test, she'd get to the bottom of this… one way or the other.

Today was not a grandparent circuit day, though she was headed to her father's house later on. She got Elliott in his car seat, bowing out of her walk with Pappy Joe because of 'errands.' Mostly, she'd ended up at the drugstore, with the baby in his sling rather than dealing with the stroller. Anyway, she kind of preferred having him nearby today.

She had walked with him up and down each aisle, maybe two or three times, before finally sucking it up and heading to the one aisle she had avoided all this time. Looking at all those boxes, it was taking her right back to the day, not one year ago, when she'd been in the same position, only now she had Elliott with her, being his usual cute and cooing self. How could he be anyone's big brother at this point?

She couldn't stand around here too long, already the entire image was leaving her feeling awkward and she wanted to get out of here. She didn't buy eight of them this time, just the one. It would either be positive or negative, and if it was positive she'd get it confirmed, but for now… One box, that'd be it. She took it, added it to the rest of the items she'd put in her basket as she walked around in denial. After putting on the best casual performance of her life at the cash register, ignoring the look from the woman on the other side as she rang up the test and looked at Elliott and her, they left the store.

There was no real plan about what she would do next. She had the test, and of course it wouldn't do any good if she didn't take it, but even so she couldn't think about the result, and what it would mean, or… She would wait for Lucas. Yeah, that was what she'd do. She would wait until he came home from school today, and she would tell him what was going on, and then they would find out together. That was the plan, that was a good plan.

She didn't go to her father's house. She wanted to, and a very big part of her definitely felt she needed to, but… If she went in there right now anyone who saw her would know that something was up, and… She couldn't have that, not right now. She texted and made up an excuse, promising herself – and him, whether he knew it or not – that she would make it up. Her father simply told her not to worry about it, that he'd be happy to see her whenever.

The rest of the day had felt like a flashback to her cutting school, hiding out at the mall. She went to the bookstore and strolled through the aisles for a few hours after grabbing lunch. By the time she got back to the car with Elliott, she had a load of new books to read, which she sort of regretted almost immediately, thinking of how that money might have been needed in the months to come, if that test turned out to be positive.

When they'd come up to the house again, Maya knew she wouldn't be able to wait until Lucas came home. She meant to, she wanted to, but it wasn't going to happen. It was already driving her mad to wonder if she was right, and he wouldn't be home for a few more hours, and she'd already gone through this mindset… not one year ago… The thought kept ringing through her head, over and over, like the summary of her panic.

Elliott had been passed into the care of his great grandfather, received happily so by Pappy Joe, who had gotten caught up in watching some old cop drama being rerun every afternoon. It had been something he and Susannah Friar watched together, every week, and now to see it again, the memories… Maya left him as he held Elliott facing the television, the better to tell him who the people on the screen were and what they were doing.

Collecting the bags from the car, she'd taken everything upstairs to the bedroom. Everything had been quietly put away where it belonged, like some last ditch effort at waiting for Lucas, but the bags were soon empty, and all that remained was that one familiar box. She hid it in a drawer, started to walk away, then changed her mind and went to take it again. She stared at it, then shook her head to herself and slipped it back in the drawer. She went to lie down on the bed, tried to get herself settled to possibly go to sleep. Pappy Joe had the baby, she could afford herself a nap. She definitely needed it.

"Hey, Pappy Joe?" Maya stood on the steps five minutes later. He looked up at her. "I'm going to take a nap, you're alright with…"

"More than fine, you go ahead," he told her, and she thanked him before going back up. The dogs seemed to have caught and understood the word 'nap,' as they soon went and followed, finding her as she stepped back out of the bathroom with the box and went to the bathroom. Very carefully, she stopped them from following her inside and shut the door.

The feeling of standing there, staring at that box, was eerily familiar. She had been so… startled… like she couldn't believe that she was in this position. It felt ridiculous, especially now, to experience this moment in this way, but there was absolutely no other way to explain it. In this case, it was the nearness of the two events that made her feel it again, she knew. If this had happened in… two years, even one year, she would have been so much calmer, so much more…

It wasn't that she didn't want this baby, if there was actually one on its way, not at all. If she could somehow push aside the noise in her head, she knew that this was the reason she was so freaked out, in that this would be a wonderful thing… so long as they could provide for that child in the way it deserved to be provided for. All these nerves came of a fear that they would mess things up and then this new baby… and Elliott as well… would suffer the consequences.

Nothing would change the outcome of the next few minutes, so she'd finally just torn that box open and gone through the steps, almost on autopilot. She'd set the timer on her phone, and then the wait began. She just sort of stood there for a few seconds, looking at the stick sitting on the edge of the sink, took a step back, and forward again… She washed her hands, undid her hair and shook it out, twisted it up into a bun… Not done yet. She looked around at the bathroom, searched for something to fix, or clean… She'd just done that the day before, it was spotless, thank you very much. She picked up Elliott's bath towel, felt its softness, reset it in its place…

She'd silenced her phone, didn't want Pappy Joe to hear the timer go off, and caught it just in time to see the seconds tick from two, to one, to zero. Time was up, this was it. She felt at the rings on her finger with her thumb as she stepped back up to the sink and picked up the test. The plus sign stared back at her, clear as day. Now she knew, now it was real.

"Oh…" she'd breathed. "Okay…"

For a few more seconds she'd just stood there, staring at that test as it sank in. They were having a baby, a second baby… kind of literally, with how young Elliott would still be by the time… Oh…

By reflex, she'd gathered everything up again, buried everything but the test itself at the back of a cabinet for now, before stepping out of the bathroom. The dogs were still there, waiting, and they followed her back to her room. After a beat, she'd stuck the test behind the wedding photo on the dresser before moving back to sit on the bed. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and another… The truth did not feel as though it set her free right about now. She was still prisoner of her thoughts, and they were having a riot in her head.

The dogs were pretty good at climbing on to the bed by now, and they did so now, finding their way to her, like they were saying 'we heard there would be napping, why aren't we napping?' Needing very little coaxing to just go with the flow right about now, Maya had gone to lie down, and Trix and Lou had settled in with her. Thinking back to when she'd been pregnant with Elliott, she had to wonder if they already could tell, if that was the reason they were sticking close to her, the way they'd done back then…

At some point, she must have dozed off for a while. But then she was awake again, she suspected, because Lucas had just arrived. A minute later, she'd been proven correct, and he had arrived, and she had just told him. Now, here they were.

"I'll call to make an appointment with Dr. Tanaka, make sure everything's alright," Maya told Lucas. At this point, she didn't even feel that she needed confirmation. If she took away all the assumptions she'd been making, writing off her symptoms to exhaustion and stress, she would have put it all together days ago already.

"Tell me when, I'll be there," Lucas nodded. It wouldn't matter if he had class, or work, he would be with her in that office. She smiled.

"So many flashbacks right now…" she shook her head. Lucas laughed.

"Don't even need a refresher," he agreed. Rather than make her laugh along, it made her look concerned again. "Hey," he reached up and held her face in his hand, stroked her cheek with his thumb. "We'll make it work. We always do. Look around…"

"I know, I do, and I'm trying to see it that way, too, but right now it's just… it's too new, and it's a lot, and I can't see the other side yet, it's just… chaos," she closed her eyes.

"I get that," Lucas told her. She felt him take up her hand in his, not to clasp it but rather to set it against her stomach, his hand over hers. She opened her eyes again, found him smiling back at her. "Remember this?" It tugged her own smile back into place.

"I remember," she nodded.

"So… what do we call this one? Can't be the sprout, we already have one of those," he joked, lifting her into a laugh now. Maya took a breath. Through all the mess of the last couple of days, she'd barely been able to think about this baby outside of the constraints of fear and uncertainty, not until it was her and Lucas, right here. Somewhere inside her, this tiny little creature was beginning, so small, but soon growing, and growing, and then she would just wait on the day when she felt it, barely at first and then much more… their little…

"Bee…" she smiled, set her second hand to sandwich his one between both of hers. Lucas smiled back, leaned in to kiss her, bowed to kiss her hand.

"Hey there, little Bee…"

They had allowed themselves just a bit more time where this truth belonged only to them, though they had already decided they would tell Pappy Joe, the better to ensure they'd get to share the news on their own terms. After the shock of it all, it kind of felt nice to go around and have this secret between them, a good secret. They had to be careful about it, they knew. Last time, Pappy Joe had figured them out before they could even share the news, and that was before he actually lived with them.

"How do we do this?" Lucas whispered, as he and Maya were clearing up after dinner. Pappy Joe had been happy to take his great grandson out for an evening stroll, which left the two of them free to plot. And still, they felt the need to whisper.

"I don't know yet. Any ideas?" Maya asked. Lucas considered this.

"So far, step one is making sure he doesn't have Elliott in his arms when we tell him," Lucas declared, which made her chuckle.

"That's a good step to have," she agreed. "Then what?" Under the 'pressure' of her stare, he couldn't help but smile. He knew she still had those worries in the back of her mind, but for now they were focusing on the good, and he wanted to make sure she got through the rest of this night and got to remember that this was the day they found out they were about to be parents again, not the day when the world turned upside down.

"I know," he replied, just as the idea came to him, and he grabbed her hand to have her follow along, which she did, giggling away.

When Pappy Joe returned from his walk, Lucas and Maya were sitting on the couch, huddled up together. Elliott was returned to them, tuckered out and ready for a quick bath before bed.

"Want to play a hand?" Lucas asked his grandfather, while Maya stood and carried Elliott up the stairs. Pappy Joe considered this for a moment before giving a nod.

"Let me grab my deck," he pointed up before starting his own ascent.

He kept the cards in his room, they knew, but most importantly they had just needed him to go to his room without it being because he was on his way to bed. Lucas waited until he'd reached the top of the stairs before climbing slowly after him. By now, Maya would have set the baby in his crib, playing along as though she was gathering his things for after his bath. When he walked by the room, she dropped pretense and went up to the door, joining Lucas as he came up, both of them approaching quietly toward the bedroom at the end of the hall.

"Now he opens the drawer," Maya signed, and Lucas pressed his lips together so not to laugh.

"Now he opens the box," he signed.

"Now he sees, now he wonders..." she continued, but paused purposefully…

Pappy Joe emerged from his room, with a baffled sort of look on his face. He held the items he would have discovered, sitting on top of his deck of cards, which he kept in an old cigar box. In one hand he held a pair of Elliott's socks, fresh from the laundry basket. In the other hand, he also held a pair of Elliott's socks, only these ones had been retrieved from the storage in the basement, where they had started to pack away those belongings they could still use, potentially, for any child that may follow, now that Elliott had outgrown them. The size difference wasn't so strong, but it was enough to leave one such as Pappy Joe to put it all together, especially as he came to find his grandson and his wife standing in the hall, waiting, smiling…

"You're not playing tricks on me, are you?" he asked, stepping toward them.

"Pretty mean trick that would be," Lucas smiled, looking to Maya, who could only give a short gesture as though to say 'surprise…' Pappy Joe looked to the socks in his hand, and he burst out laughing, before breaching the space between them and hugging the pair of them. Here they were… Tome two, chapter one…

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners