Chapter 55
Buzzing With News

The next few days had been like a strange play. They weren't telling anyone about the new pregnancy, and on the whole there hadn't been so many symptoms, so really if not for that test and the small epiphany Maya had reached at the hospital, she could have not known or simply not been pregnant at all. It almost became something they didn't think about, early on as they were. She had her appointment with Dr. Tanaka coming up, and they would know for sure, but until then… Everything was normal. She really was pregnant, wasn't she?

Almost to prove a point, Maya felt that all too familiar lurch in her stomach upon waking, the morning of her appointment at the hospital. Some part of her still felt the need to be as quiet as possible, not wanting to wake up anyone, even though she knew this would probably be a pointless endeavor. She could be a stealth superstar as she bolted out of bed and down the hall to the bathroom, even as she shut the door, and then the morning peace would be ripped apart by the sound of her retching.

Back in their room, it absolutely woke up Lucas, who had not been a deep sleeper ever since he'd become a father. He woke and felt the empty spot next to him at the same time, processed the sound in the next split second, looked over to confirm that Elliott slept on, and then he got up and hurried over to the bathroom, even as a barely awake Pappy Joe came teetering up from his bed in the room across from the bathroom.

"Can you…" Lucas asked, pointing back where he'd come from, and his grandfather went off to look in on the baby while he stepped into the bathroom to find Maya sitting on the floor. She looked like she was just waiting to see if it was over, if her stomach had anything else it would like to evacuate. "Nothing if not prompt, huh?" Lucas asked, grabbing a washcloth and running it under water from the sink. Maya didn't reply, and he didn't expect her to. It was never pleasant, regardless of the reason, but of course they both knew it would keep happening. They used to joke about how it would come, when she'd been pregnant the first time, as though the moment she woke up, a countdown clock was set off. And it never failed, not as long as the morning sickness had lasted.

"Elliott?" she asked after a few seconds.

"Pappy Joe's with him, don't know if…" Lucas started to ask, only to hear the baby crying from down the hall. "It's fine, just take a minute," he told Maya when she looked like she was moving to rise.

"I probably look like a ghost or something right now, I'd just make him cry more," she sighed, abandoning the effort.

"Where are we on the 'I like jokes' scale right now?" Lucas inquired. Maya looked at him, considering.

"I don't know, let's find o… Nope…" she sat back up, unleashing wave two.

By the time Maya had gotten out of the bathroom, Lucas had already been sent off to see how Elliott was doing. It wasn't that Maya didn't trust he would be fine with his great grandfather, but if Lucas was there with him, maybe it felt a bit like she was there with him. She had made her way downstairs to find Lucas sitting at the table, feeding Elliott a bottle, while Pappy Joe was finishing up something for her to eat.

"Thanks," Maya nodded to him, taking her plate to the table. Elliott was plenty happy to be looking at his father right about now, especially if it meant he got to eat. "You know, I remembered it was bad in the beginning, but I did not remember how much." The feeling would pass, they both knew it, and still it was difficult for Lucas not to show concern, and for Maya to really feel anything except the urge to crawl back into bed.

"Susannah had some choice words for me when she was pregnant with Tom," Pappy Joe recalled, tipping his head to his grandson and great grandson. Lucas blinked at the thought of his sweet old grandmother cursing, even as it pulled a small smile out of Maya.

After the rocky star to their morning, it had been a slow going of getting ready before they headed out to the hospital for Maya's appointment.

"Never seen a man so happy to be spending his day babysitting a four-month-old," Maya hummed as they reached the hospital. Pappy Joe had just texted her, with a picture of him and Elliott attached to the message. They were back on the couch again, for what she suspected would be another 'thrilling marathon.'

Being back at the clinic today, knowing what for, still felt like so much déjà vu. Even the receptionist, and the nurse, and then Dr. Tanaka herself, saw the two of them arrive with that same sort of surprise. It wasn't as though they didn't already know why Maya was here from when she'd made the appointment, but again she had been a patient of theirs up until last spring and now here she was again.

The whole appointment had been loads more echoes of the previous fall, but it all boiled down to what they had known already. It was official now, baby Friar number two, their Bee, was due the following May. Everything looked good so far, according to Dr. Tanaka. She had not been Maya's doctor from the start with Elliott, but she had been there for the home stretch, just as she had seen her mother through the twins, and MJ, and now this fourth which was due in a handful of weeks, so they knew they were in good hands.

"Three of you now in May, huh?" Maya breathed as they walked out of the clinic. "I'm starting to feel outnumbered… Then again, I already am, between you, and Elliott, and Pappy Joe…" she counted off. "No pressure, Bee, but if you were a girl, we could tag team on those boys," she whispered down at herself, making Lucas snort. "Not that I wouldn't be perfectly happy with a house full of Huckleminis running around," Maya assured him, swinging to stand facing him now instead of walking at his side. "I'm just saying…"

"I hear you," Lucas nodded, still chuckling at the new nickname she had added to her ever expanding roster. "It's hard not to picture it already, one way or the other… So long as it stays that way, that no matter what we end up with we'll be happy… then that's all that matters, yeah?"

"All it had to do was exist, and it did that, so… here we go," Maya smiled, and he leaned in to kiss her, the better to truly hold on to the moment and how happy they felt. Now that it was all confirmed and they were looking to what the next few months would be, and then what life beyond that, with two children under the age of two to provide for, they were going to have to tackle what it would mean, and what they needed to do, but they weren't taking that jump just yet. No one knew but the two of them and Pappy Joe, and knowing each other, Maya and Lucas both knew they'd want to get some handle on the future before they let anybody else find out.

"Is it too early to think about names?" Maya asked as Lucas looked up.

"Uh…"

"I'm just saying, last time, we had it, but then I changed my mind, but that was the right call in the end, yeah? He looks so much like an Elliott, and…"

"Maya…" Lucas looked back down at her, with what felt like 'I'm sorry' eyes.

"What?" she asked, following his gaze and turning her head to find he was looking at her parents, staring back at them from where they'd stopped after turning down the corridor toward the clinic. "Oh, now I know why the date sounded familiar…" she quietly told herself.

"Appointment today?" Lucas guessed, just as quiet, as they had no choice but to start walking in the direction to meet Katy and Shawn.

"Yup," Maya told him. "Any chance we could be here for another reason?"

"I don't think our faces know they're supposed to play it cool," Lucas shook his head at her.

"Hey, was worth a try," Maya sighed. So much for keeping it a secret.

The way her parents were looking back at them, she could just translate the narrative that had to be going through their heads, which went something like 'why are they here, right outside the clinic and looking all shifty, they couldn't possibly be… unless… wait, are they? Is she? Is she?' They stopped as they stood facing each other, like the four corners of a square. Silence hung over them, like each side knew very well what had to come next, a question or a revelation, but neither of them was able to start. Maya looked to Lucas, who could only give her a look back to say what he felt. This was her choice.

"We… are... having a baby… again," she finally had to look back to her parents, nodding her way through her stilted reply.

There was not even the space of an errant worry that this news would be met with anything but pure happiness, allowing that small bubble of 'focuse on the moment, leave the logistics for later' sentimentality to grow stronger.

"This is unbelievable…" Katy smiled, hugging her daughter.

"You're telling me," Maya laughed, hugging her back even as she was very aware of her mother's belly nudging at her, with her little brother soon to be born. Meanwhile, Shawn had given Lucas' hand a shake even as he clapped him on the shoulder.

"Didn't take long, huh?" he teased.

"Dad!" Maya 'scolded' him, though she couldn't keep from smiling, especially as her release from her mother's arms had brought her into her father's. The way he held her, careful like he didn't want to shake her up too much, made her appreciate what this unplanned early reveal now afforded her. When they'd been pregnant with Elliott, keeping that secret as tight lipped as possible… save for those other accidental discoveries… it had made it so their families were on the whole on the outside of the early days experience, but now she kind of liked the idea of changing that. There was always that thing where telling people early might have been bad luck, or potentially… No. They weren't going to go there. This was good, this was really good.

It also left them with a choice to make. Now Pappy Joe knew, and Katy and Shawn knew… What now? It kind of didn't feel right to keep at least some of the others in the dark… like the rest of the parents…

"You just had your appointment with the doctor? How did that go?" Katy asked her daughter and son-in-law.

"We did, yeah," Lucas confirmed. "Went great," he turned to Maya.

"May 5th, just about," she told her mother and father.

They had to go, with Katy's appointment to get to, but they would call each other later that day to talk some more. Left to themselves again, Lucas turned to Maya.

"We might have missed each other if we hadn't stopped," he pointed out as they went on walking to leave the hospital.

"Yeah, but I don't know, I'm kind of glad we didn't," she admitted, which made him smile. He was kind of glad, too. "We should to go see your parents now," she decided even as she said it. Lucas stalled and turned to her.

"Yeah?" he asked, feeling a bit of a heart skip at the thought. He could already hear his mother losing it at the prospect of another grandbaby.

"Yeah," Maya smiled at him. "And then mine, the other mine…" she went on, with a mental image of her own at the thought of getting to tell her father.

The last time, she hadn't so much told him as he had found out because her siblings had found out and he'd overheard. And then he'd flown from New York to Houston, shown up on her doorstep with a box of presents… and he'd collapsed… and that was when she'd known of his illness… The memory was by now the very definition of bittersweet. On the one hand, it forced her to think about his health, and the possibility that it might have been failing again, but on the other, it had enabled the two of them to start on the path to where they were now, back in each other's lives…

"Just those four then?" Lucas suggested. "The siblings, the friends, maybe we keep them waiting a month or so?"

"Those four and my grandmother," Maya countered, and Lucas agreed.

"We are going to need a plan… two plans…" he thought aloud as they once again started walking. This challenge was met with a look of inspiration growing over his wife's face.

"I'm sure we can come up with something…"

As they drove toward the Friar house, Maya checked in with Pappy Joe, letting him know everything had gone fine, and also telling him about their run in with Katy and Shawn, which was now sending them on a small mission of sorts. Would he be alright to watch Elliott a while longer?

"Don't you worry now, Maya, I've got little man all set. If I remember it right, next episode is going to be something."

"Still watching his show," Maya told Lucas with a laugh after they hung up.

"I remember if I was ever at the house on Saturday nights, I'd be sitting on the couch, next to my grandmother, watching along. She would lean in and whisper to me if there was anything she felt she had to explain so I would understand."

"Kind of like what he's doing with Elliott now," Maya nodded, smiling.

"Except I was about five years old at the time, not a baby," Lucas pointed out.

"Please tell me there are pictures of this somewhere."

"As it turns out, we're kind of going just the right place for those."

It used to be that Thomas Friar had an office, not too far off from the middle school. When Lucas had been suspended, he remembered how everything had felt as though it had gone so fast. They had called his father, and he had arrived, not five minutes later, on foot. It had made for a very tensely quiet walk back to his office. Since then, specifically about two years ago, when Lucas had left home and gone to Houston for college, his father had decided it was time to change things around. He now worked out of home, in his office there. He would usually go out and meet his clients where they needed him, often at their homes, sometimes where they worked. Some long standing clients, a lot of them having become friends of the family over the years, would come over to the house when they needed to see him.

Thanks to this restructuring, Lucas could generally count for finding both his parents at home on any day, provided they hadn't gone out for one reason or another. Just to be sure, Lucas had called ahead, saying he had something to drop off at their place, and his mother had told him to come right over. His father was expecting a client, but not for a little while.

"She might not let us in, we did not provide her with her Junebug," Maya teased as they pulled up to the house.

"Under the circumstances, I think we might get a pass."

They let themselves in, calling out to know where Tom and Melinda would be. Lucas' mother called back and directed them toward his father's office. His mother would at times help his father with some of his paperwork, playing the part time assistant, which appeared to be the case now, as they were in the midst of sorting through files together.

"Just one minute, we'll be right with you, Steven's on his way," Mr. Friar explained.

"Not a problem, we'll go wait in the kitchen," Maya told him, getting hold of Lucas' hand and pulling him away. "Right, so who goes up there, you or me?" she whispered to him.

"Maya…" he looked at her, no need of an answer.

"Alright, so what do you think, got some tape?"

It had become something like a symbolic little installation on the Friars' kitchen wall, on the space over the large window, that they had a row of various wooden forks. Melinda had been inspired and had these made by Dot Cassidy. Each one represented a member of the family. There was one for herself, one for Thomas, and Pappy Joe, and then Lucas and Maya each had one, and by their side was one more, for Elliott… Now, they couldn't exactly go and commission one more from Lucas' aunt right then and there, but they could just sort of… have a place holder.

They'd had to make it quick, before Lucas' parents came along. He had just managed to get back down and sit at the table with Maya before they arrived to join them.

"Do you two want anything to drink?" Melinda asked, already pulling glasses from the cupboard in such a way that the question could have been 'what are you having to drink?' Soon, there were four glasses of iced tea on the table.

It was ridiculously complicated for them not to say anything, to play it cool until one of the two managed to notice something. Lucas and Maya had gone to the trouble of sitting on the side of the table with the window at their backs, so the Friars would be sitting facing it. Of course now they had to wait and hope, somehow, that one of them would look up and see before Mr. Friar's client showed up.

Minutes went by. They exhausted just about any subject they could think of, from Elliott – which was most of those minutes – to Lucas' school, Lucas' work, and Maya's… well, what was she up to these days? Lucas could tell this was something that might pull her right out of her happy place and back to where they had not yet gone, figuring out what they would do when it came to her education, and her working…

"Hey, Mom, do you have pictures from when I was little, and we'd be at Pappy Joe's on Saturday night, me and Nana Sus?" Lucas turned to Melinda, who was on her feet and ready to go grab those at once. But then right at that moment, her husband happened to look up and notice the addition on the wall.

"Mel, hold on," he called to his wife as he stood, still looking, unaware of the discreet smirk shared between his son and daughter-in-law. Melinda came back now, turning her eyes up to where Thomas looked as well. She saw it at once now. It had been easy enough to plan this one, once they'd had the idea. They had an extra plastic fork from a recent take-out order, sitting right there in the car, in the space between the driver and passenger seats. Now it had been stuck to the wall with tape, next to the one Dot had made for Elliott.

The Friars looked back down to their son and his wife, in what felt like a comically timed synchronized motion. By then it was just about impossible for Maya and Lucas to keep from smiling, and still it did not keep Maya from turning her head back to have a look before addressing Lucas.

"Hey, that wasn't there before, was it?"

"No, don't think it was," he played along, doing his best to keep it together as his parents processed what they were slowly putting together. "Any idea what it means?" he asked Maya, who shrugged, giving him a smile that could toss his heart for a loop.

Right then, the Melinda outburst they had expected finally came to pass, the shock having given way to truth, and now excitement. She had hurried around the table, then stalled as though she did not know who to hug first, so she'd simply gone ahead and grabbed them both at the same time, while they close in around her. Thomas, knowing she was not about to let go any time soon, had decided to go ahead and join the embrace where he was able to find a spot. By the time his client arrived, two minutes later, they were all still sort of halfway holding on to one another, as there had been those same questions they had received before and the same answers added. Yes, everything was going fine, and the baby was due in May, like its brother and its father. There was a lot of happy blubbering, and some thinly contained emotion throughout, and it left the young parents to carry on their tour of happy news with a buoyant joy of their own.

Once they were back in the car however, knowing where they were headed next, there was a bit of a sinking feeling, a worry that sort of came hand in hand with being around Kermit these days. There was no definitive answer as to what was going on with him, if something was going on with him again, but there wasn't a clean bill either. His doctor wanted him to take things easy, which meant that there could very well be something wrong, very wrong, and they just didn't know what it was yet.

Maybe part of the reason Maya was okay with their parents knowing was that… deep down… she worried that all those fears would come to pass, and if that was the case, then… then she needed him to know this as soon as possible. One more reason to keep fighting, right?

"How do you want to do this one?" Lucas asked as he drove them from one house to the other. When she didn't reply after several seconds, he stole a look and said her name.

"I'm just going to tell him," she finally replied, still half in her thoughts. "No big tricks or props. I just want to look at him, say the words, and know that he knows. "I didn't get to tell him last time, I… I wouldn't even have wanted to tell him last time. But I do now." And it might be my only chance.

"Okay, sounds good," Lucas quietly replied. He hadn't even been able to consider, up to this point, how the situation might weigh on her. Stuck in this place where they really didn't know one way or the other how things would go with Kermit, this moment in their lives, this happy, wonderful moment, would have to co-exist with the knowledge that thing might take a turn for Maya's father. Lucas didn't like the idea of her going through that while she was also pregnant, but they didn't get to decide, did they?

They arrived at the house to find Maya's grandmother busy at work on the flowerbed in front. Lucas offered to assist her, and she accepted, so he joined in, exchanging a smile with Maya as she carried on into the house to find her father. They had figured out already that she would tell him, and then she would tell her stepmother and grandmother. The kids would be at school now, and for the next little while, so there was no rush.

"Hey! I didn't know if you were coming today," Kermit sat up from where he had been lying on the couch. "No Elliott today?" he asked as she came and sat with him.

"No, no, he's at home with Pappy Joe, he's got this whole… tv marathon thing going with him, it's sweet, even if Elliott is probably getting so far as 'hey, there's people moving out there,'" she explained.

"I used to do that with you, too, when you were little," Kermit laughed. "I'd have you there on my lap, and we would watch movies. I'd try and cover your eyes when there was too much blood, or violence, or other things you shouldn't have been seeing, and you would just think it was a game, pushing at my hand with yours and laughing…" Maya smiled, for the story, for how it made him happy to recall and to share it, too.

"How are you feeling today?" she asked.

"I'm good, you know, tired sometimes, but then I don't sleep well most nights, I just… It'll pass, it…" He looked at her, the silence holding, showing how she could see through him as much he could see through her. She didn't believe him, and he didn't believe himself either, except he wanted to… needed to. "I'm not giving up, Maya, alright? Whatever it is, I'll get through it. I finally have a shot at being your dad, I'm not just…"

"Dad, I'm pregnant," she cut in, and he stopped. She let out a breath. That wasn't exactly how she'd meant to tell him, but there it was now, no taking it back. She'd said it, and now he knew… She smiled, waiting for his shock to dial back, so she might know…

The way his face broke into that smile, oh… He pulled her into a hug, and she burrowed herself into it. She heard him laugh and there were tears in his voice, good ones. The news of Elliott's coming had been a shock, a wakeup call. This one, right from his daughter, not hundreds of miles away but here at his side, it was a blessing, proof positive that the past was well behind them now. And yet… A lot could be said in how a person held another, and as her father held her, sounding just overjoyed, his arms… his arms told another tale, of urgency, of fear. Putting it all together, what she was left with was one whole image…

Whether he said it or not, whether the doctors said it or not, he believed he was dying. He believed it, and in his mind it would not be years from now but so much sooner, soon enough that now this news, this promise of another grandchild in the near future, was both the best thing he could have heard and also a source of concern as to whether he'd get to see that child born, get to hold him or her…

"I'm so happy for you, sweetie…" he finally spoke, pulling back to look at her and reaching at once to brush tears from her face.

"Not telling anyone else except the parents and the grandparents right now, okay?" Maya sniffled. "It stays between us."

"Not a worry, secret's safe," he vowed. "When… when are you…"

"May 5th," Maya replied and he smiled.

"Day after Star Wars day," he remarked, and it got her laughing. He went on telling her how funny it would be, if the baby was born the day before the due date, which made it so that, by the time Abigail came around, and Lucas came into the house with Kermit's mother and Maya's grandmother, the two of them had stopped crying and were now in a prime mood to share the good news with a couple more people.

When they left to return home, before the kids could arrive and wonder what the two of them were doing there, Maya was just a bit in her own head, but she turned to Lucas when he asked how it had gone with her father.

"It was good, it was… mostly… mostly good," she looked down, letting out a breath. It wasn't over. She wasn't going to look at him like he had one foot out the door already. Whatever came next, right now she had her father back, she had her whole family here in Austin, both sides together, and she had this little Bee in her belly. She would hold on to that and maybe… maybe…

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners