Chapter 62
A Day For Thankfulness

"Hey, no, I know, bud, I know…" Lucas tried to comfort the fussing boy even as he worked to get him dressed up. "It's not fun, is it? It won't last, it'll get better, okay?" As soon as he'd finished getting Elliott's outfit on, he'd picked up his son and continued doing his best to make him feel better. Maya had been the one to realize, just a couple days back, that he might have started teething, and it had only gotten confirmed as time went on. By this morning, the baby had turned a corner right into 'this is very unpleasant, please make it stop.'

Of course, it had be this day of all days, meaning that not only would they be dealing with a teething baby, but also family and friends coming over, for Thanksgiving, and for the big reveal on the Bee. They couldn't exactly go and tell Elliott to get over it, so they'd just have to deal with it, wouldn't they?

"Got a nice, cool teething ring with your name on it downstairs, come on," Lucas moved out of the nursery, pressing a kiss to his son's head. He stopped in the hallway, looking into the room across the way, where he could see Maya stand in front of the mirror, turning this way and that as she adjusted her dress. She'd bought it the day after her little sister had come along and confirmed for herself that she was about to be an aunt again, which had been the day when she'd finally decided to tell their parent group.

Maya was almost sure a couple of them already suspected. They would all hang out, some or all of them together, a few times a week, whether it was at someone's house, or the mall, or out for a walk, a workout… That day, she was to meet Ainsley, so they might take Elliott and Cameron into the pool. There was no way she would be able to hide a damned thing in a swimsuit. So, when they had gone into the locker room, Maya had tapped her friend's shoulder. Ainsley had turned around and Maya had lifted up her shirt from her belly. If any of the others had suspected, Ainsley had not been one of them, going by the surprised little cry she'd given.

After leaving the pool, they'd ended up at the mall, shopping for the best 'surprise, everyone!' dress for Thanksgiving. In no time, Maya had reached out to Billie, and Aaron and Marius, and Brianna, and they had gotten to find out, too. Of those four, only Brianna sounded genuinely surprised at the news.

In a way, Maya felt bad about telling them before everyone else who still had no idea, those who had been her friends longer, but she'd gotten over it in time, telling herself that length did not remove the most important word: friends. They were that to her, too, and she wasn't about to penalize them or declare them any less important just because they'd all known one another for less than a year.

Now, today… today was the big 'unveiling,' the end of covertness and secrets. After today, she would be pregnant out in the world and not just at home. They'd had a day just like this, last year. Of course, that time, it had been Christmas… and it had also been the day Lucas had proposed to her and they'd been engaged. It had been a very good day, and the memory of it could still make her smile, even as it quelled her nerves over the 'big reveal' they were about to make today.

"Hey…" she turned around, catching the sound of Elliott's discomfort. He was already reaching out his little hand at her, and Lucas passed him over into his mother's arms. "What's the matter, Cranky Sprout? Gums got you down?" she asked, moving around with him, rubbing his back and humming his lullaby as they made their way down together.

In the kitchen, as Lucas retrieved the teething ring, Maya stood by and watched Pappy Joe, 'hard at work.' He was tending his turkey with so much intensity that she didn't want to disturb him and risk him dropping to the floor for the surprise. When Lucas came back and presented the cold object to their son, Maya whispered for them to leave the chef to his kitchen.

"You know, he used to do this, every year when I was little. I haven't seen him do the turkey since I was maybe ten or eleven."

"Yes, you told me," Maya reminded him, brushing lightly at Elliott's fine blond hair as he held the cold thing in his mouth. Lucas would keep a close watch as it sometimes slipped from his grip. "He wanted to do it this year, I wasn't about to tell him no. I think we know what got him back in the kitchen." Lucas tipped his head to Elliott. Maya chuckled. "In a couple years, when he can actually eat that turkey and know who made it…"

"Patty," Lucas agreed now, and Maya nodded.

"Impressing a girl…" she whispered. "What happens if the two of them get serious? He might decide to move to Houston to be with her."

"And leave him? Not going to happen," Lucas shook his head, looking to the boy too preoccupied with the plastic thing to pay them any mind.

"I wouldn't want to keep him from that if it's what he wants…"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, yeah? It's a turkey, not an engagement ring. By the way? You look beautiful in that dress," he smiled, the expression soon reciprocated.

"Ready to flaunt," she told him, raising her chin.

In a bit of perfect timing, this gesture was met with the chime of the doorbell, making them both freeze as they looked back to one another.

"That'll be some of yours, the parade's starting soon," Lucas stated. "How do you want to do this?"

"Well, better get them in the house first…"

"Right, I'll get the door."

Opening the door, Lucas found himself nearly bowled over by the giddy Hunter twins as they crowded around his legs, asking if they'd missed 'it,' likely to mean the parade… and Santa.

"No, you're right on time, with ten minutes to spare. What's that?" he turned to MJ, as the boy just shy of turning two brandished a small gift bag from where he sat perched in his father's arms. "That for me?" Lucas asked, and MJ shook his head. "No? Maya then?" MJ nodded. "Oh, well, we need to go find her, yeah?" As soon as Shawn set him down, the boy was off running, his sisters on his heels. Shawn went to help Katy with Alex, which left Lucas to go chasing after his small brother and sisters-in-law.

He found them just as, having set Elliott down in his seat, Maya now had her young brother in one arm, while her mesmerized sisters had their hands up to her rounded bump. They knew exactly what it meant, and they were very excited. Maya was presently explaining to them that, as much as they would like to feel the baby kick like they'd felt their baby brother or their nephew, this one was still too small for them to feel yet.

With the parade's start as imminent as it was, the Hunters were just barely landed among them when the Harts next arrived. Nellie and Gracie had to be told to keep quiet about the surprise, so the others could be surprised, too, as Lucas once again stepped in as greeter. Along came Eliza and Wyatt, ahead of their older and knowing siblings. Wyatt, being the same age as the twins, had much the same reaction of 'oh, fun, a baby!' before moving up to put his hand on his sister's belly so he might say hello. Eliza, twice his age as she was, gave a great gasp and squeal before launching into questions which highlighted just how much she and Cara were growing to be alike in many ways.

"What's this one going to be?" came off as the one she was most curious about. Maya had to remind her that it was too early to know that, too. Asked what she hoped it would be, Eliza had given it much thought, so much that she had to be reminded the parade was starting, and in the end she chose not to pronounce herself until later. After she'd dashed off, Lucas had caught his wife's eye, giving her a discreet sign of 'seven tall sons.' Maya squinted at him, and he didn't need signs to know what that meant.

With Maya's family arrived, they had a brief pause in the revelations. Lucas' parents arrived an hour later, and they already knew. For the time being, they were more concerned in seeing to their teething grandson. Lucas and Maya would look to each other sometimes, neither doing so well to keep from laughing at how Melinda Friar held the babe like she was soothing him from his first heartbreak. Then, it was Patty Robinson, an hour after that, and in contrast Elliott's great grandfather looked like a schoolboy about to be visited by his first crush. When she walked in and quickly appeared delighted by the scents wafting from the kitchen, the look on Pappy Joe's face was priceless.

"Hey, Dylan just texted, they'll be here in ten," Lucas told Maya as she came back down from changing the baby.

"Good," she breathed, excited and nervous all at once. They were stopping by for the afternoon, after which they were all due for dinners with their respective families.

"Should we maybe do the others, in New York, and then well… Nadine…" Lucas asked. Maya's face gave a twinge. She might have had a slightly better grasp on her emotions than she'd done back around Halloween, but the ongoing split between Zay and Nadine continued to have its effects from time to time.

"Yeah, let's do that," she agreed. They excused themselves and went up the stairs, taking Elliott along so he might be greeted by his faraway aunts and uncles.

They set themselves up at Lucas' desk, in their room, bringing a second chair so they might sit in front of the laptop together, with Elliott in his father's arms, the better for his mother to spring her surprise. Trying for Nadine first, they got no answer, followed by a message in the chat, saying she'd get back to them in a few minutes. So, they moved on to the New York bunch. This would include Farkle, Isadora, Asher, Ray, Joey, Rebecca, and Zay. This time around, they got an answer fast enough to suggest the one who answered had been right there at the computer when the call came in.

"Good day, Texas, sweet Texas," Zay greeted them, zoning in on the baby right away, trying to get his attention even as Lucas tried to assist this from his end. Elliott only started to cry. "What's the matter, little man, not happy to see your Uncle Zay?"

"It's not you," Lucas promised. "His teeth are coming in."

"Sounds painful," Zay cringed.

"He'll get through it," Maya nodded, looking to the baby, reaching to join one of her hands to the one Lucas already had at his back. "Happy Thanksgiving," she turned a smile back to their friend.

"Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, Friars," Zay tipped his head to them.

"Is everyone out there with you?" Maya asked.

"Oh, yeah, everyone…" Zay confirmed, the tone in his voice saying so much more than his words. This year, rather than to have them all fly back for Thanksgiving and Christmas, their families had flown out to spend this first holiday with them. Zay absolutely had not been looking forward to what his parents would have to say regarding his choices of late, between his taking a break from school and then his break with Nadine.

"So you went to hide with your computer for a while?" Lucas guessed.

"Something like that," Zay gave a slow nod.

"Can you go get the others so we can say hello? Not your parents, I mean…" Maya asked.

"Yeah, sure, just a sec," Zay got up and walked out, leaving them to get a look at his small room, which barely looked like a room and more like 'the place where I dumped all my stuff after I moved out from Boston.'

As the rest of their New York friends crowded into the room, they almost all had a similar look to them like they were about to give a cheerfully loud greeting but pulled it back in when they saw the baby. He'd stopped crying by now, but he would absolutely have started again if he'd been startled by several loud noises at once.

"Can't wait to see you guys in person," Asher smiled, after a round of wishes of happy Thanksgiving back and forth between the two ends of the call.

"Us, too," Maya nodded. "Just a few more weeks…" It didn't seem likely that they could have gotten to this point where 'a few weeks' felt like a bearably short thing for them to wait out, when it used to be that the prospect of them being separated by miles and miles like this for any number of years had them parting in tears. But now here they were, just about two and a half years into this, and they had adjusted… to a degree…

For a few minutes, they went through what would have been expected of this call, to the unsuspecting bunch in New York especially. How were things? How was school? Was work okay? What were they up to back in New York these days? The way they went on, things were great. Those of them who had moved out from Texas after high school had gone from experiencing the transition Maya and Riley had done, in reverse, to adopting the city as a place they now knew well and truly appreciated in their own rights. Whether they would stay there or not once they finished school remained to be seen.

"Maya, how's your father doing?" Farkle asked, and with the happy news she was waiting to unload the question came like just a bit of a gut punch, but she handled it as well as she could.

"Uh, alright, I guess," she replied, checking that the door was still closed and pulling her hair over one shoulder as she slowly nodded. "He's still kind of exhausted a lot, even though he says he's feeling better than he did for a while." She would try not to watch him like he was about to drop at any second, she really would, but nothing she'd seen from him in the last few months had been able to chase that one memory from her mind. It was just imprinted in her mind's eye, that day back in January when her father had shown up on her front step and almost immediately passed out in front of her.

"He's got her there looking after him," Lucas added, turning a smile to his wife like someone prodding at dark clouds to let the sun shine back through. "And him, too," he looked to Elliott, who'd calmed down some, looking at the faces on the screen like he was back on the couch downstairs with his great grandfather. It felt like the perfect opening right there, for her to make her big reveal.

There was a knock at the door, and getting a look at the time Maya and Lucas both realized they might have missed the doorbell, bringing the rest of the group in their midst. This was good though; they could potentially make their announcement to everyone all together.

"Come in!" Lucas called out. The door opened, and their expectations were swiftly swept aside.

"Hey… Told you I'd just be a few minutes," Nadine smiled.

Maya had been sure she'd been doing well enough, managing her emotions in talking with her friends back in New York, wishing they were here. And then Nadine had shown up, completely unexpected, and it had brought her to her feet, wanting nothing more than to embrace her friend the way she'd been wanting to for a month.

It took all of a second, as Maya stood from her chair, for several things to happen all at once, and her realizing that they could all see her little 'secret' was only the second of those. She looked down at herself, up at Nadine – who suddenly had tears in her eyes – over to the screen – where an array of various shocked faces was collected – and back to Lucas – who instinctively tried to cover Elliott's ears even as he smiled back at her.

"Right…" she breathed. "Surprise?"

"Nadine, for goodness' sake, will you hug her for us?" Asher called from the screen, and both Maya and Nadine laughed as they moved to do as told.

"When did you… what…" Nadine tried to speak.

"Spot on impression of us last month," Maya told her, looking back to Lucas. He nodded, reminiscing.

At this point there was very little else they could do except to pass on what they knew, from how far along she was to when she was due, though both Maya and Lucas expected copious amounts of belly rubbing and additional presents to materialize when they all came down over Christmas. With the group out of Houston not far behind, they had to cut the call short, with wishes for courage as they all dealt with their visiting families. The only other stand out, as they couldn't help but see it, was the 'contact' between Zay on the screen and Nadine there in the room. They didn't exactly speak, but it felt as though this might have been the first and closest thing to a conversation they had had in a long time. What it would or wouldn't do for them in the long run, they really could not say, but it had happened.

After they hung up, it felt as though they had to finally acknowledge the fact that Nadine was here, in Austin, in her friends' house, and not back in Boston where they had assumed she was up until a few minutes ago.

"Why didn't you tell us you were coming?" Maya asked.

"Uh, hello, why didn't you tell me you were having another baby?" Nadine retorted.

"Mine's just timing, yours is… it's… Oh, I don't care, you're here," Maya laughed, brushing at her own new tears. "How long are you staying?"

"Just over the weekend, but I might come back as soon as the semester's over. It's just… It's not the same, without all you guys, and I might have gone to New York, but…" Nadine shook her head, looking down for a beat, pulling herself together again so she might look at Elliott. "He's getting so big…" she beamed, reaching for his hand. He watched her with some curiosity as he squeezed her finger.

"Yeah, we noticed," Lucas let out what could only be called a 'my baby is growing up' sad dad sigh as he passed Elliott into his Aunt Nadine's eager arms. Maya had such a look like she couldn't wait to tease him about this, but then it wasn't as though she wouldn't get pulled right down into sad mom territory in the process, so it might have been better to leave it alone and move on.

"Teething, huh?" Nadine asked.

"I just want it to be over," Maya nodded, right before they caught the sound of the doorbell from below. She gasped, turning to Lucas. That would be their last group, their final reveal before it all just became telling. "The twins…" she told her husband, and he took off at once. Those two loved answering the door, and it wouldn't be past them to go 'hey everyone, guess what!'

Getting down the stairs, Lucas found that his hurrying had not been unwarranted, as he found Shawn walking off with one each of his little daughters under his arms. Nellie and Gracie both found this too amusing to be bothered, and meanwhile there were Riley, Dylan, Sophie, and Chiara, freshly arrived after their drive from Houston. Presently, they were saying hello to Maya's mother, there with four-week-old Alex in her arms and MJ being seen to by Lucas' mother.

He had barely gotten to open his mouth, about to say hello, to draw his friends' attention, when Dylan happened to look back and, with a call of Nadine's name, get the others to do the same. Now they were hurrying over to greet the visitor, who was as happy to see them as they were to see her. Lucas imagined she herself or Maya had come to the conclusion that it would be best for her to come down first, get that surprise out of the way so not to steal Maya's thunder. It also became clear that the two of them up there had come up with a plan, as Nadine told the quartet that they had the gang from New York upstairs on Skype. This got them moving in that direction with no idea that the call in question had started and ended without them. Lucas knew what they would really find, so he followed.

Arriving at the room where they had been summoned, the group was instructed into silent as Maya stood at the crib, where Lucas and the others could see that Elliott had just been put down for a nap.

"He finally went to sleep, poor guy needed it real bad." The way she stood, there'd be no seeing her belly until she turned around, but clearly the unexpected gift of the baby falling asleep placed her in the awkward position of not being able to move without causing a reaction which would in turn undo this small miracle. "Alright, listen," she whispered, stretching out her arm and pointing her finger at her gathered friends. All the while, she did not turn around, which made for a very strange sight if you didn't know what was going on. If you did… well, it was just funny. "You will not make a sound higher than what my voice is right now. You will want to, you really, really will, but you are going to resist that urge, are we clear?" Her finger moved to each face until it would give a nod. "Okay, you just remember that promise. Remember it, hold on to it…" She turned around, facing them properly at last.

Riley very nearly squeaked, until Dylan's hand managed to clamp over her mouth, his other hand already over his own mouth. Meanwhile, Sophie was employing the technique of pressing her lips together as hard as she could in order to prevent any sound coming out, even as her wife had something like the opposite response. Chiara's lips were not pressed together so much as her mouth hung wide open in surprise, and no sound came out at all.

"We were going to wait until Christmas, like last year," Lucas told them. "But, well…" he gestured toward Maya, who was now coming forward, the better to be caught up in a hug with many arms closing around her.

Between their arrival and the time when they finally had to head out toward the Zvolensky house and the Orlando house, very little time had been spent talking about anything but this new baby. It felt really good now to be around all these people they cared about, these people they loved, and to be able to share this news which had been so monumentally important to them for weeks already. Suddenly, Lucas' academic realignment made a lot more sense to all those who had previously been left to wonder why he would abandon his former goals. They could understand this, get behind it.

"So, I've been thinking," Maya hummed, that night, as she and Lucas readied for bed. He was checking in on the sleeping Elliott, who'd found little more beyond distress after waking from his nap, which left him to be passed around from person to person, as this did sort of calm him, for a little while, until it had to start again.

"Yeah?" Lucas asked, moving across the room to sit next to her on the bed.

"I'd like Sam to be this one's godfather," she told him, setting a hand to her bump. Lucas barely had to consider this. He smiled, nodded slowly.

"I'd like that, too," he told Maya, who smiled and leaned in to kiss him.

"That means you get to pick godmother," she told him. Last time, it had been reversed. She'd picked Elliott's godmother, Riley, while Lucas had picked his godfather, Zay. And when put to the challenge, he found he had his answer already just there at the forefront of his mind.

"Nadine," he bowed his head, and Maya grinned. Their friend in question was presently sleeping on the couch downstairs. She didn't feel like going to her parents' just yet, so they'd insisted she stay here for the night. "You want to wake up and ask her, don't you?" Lucas guessed.

"Maybe just a little," Maya admitted. "I won't, I swear, just…"

"I know," he assured her. "Hey…" he smiled after a moment of silence. "Secret's out now."

"Mostly out. We still need to tell a few more people, important people who just couldn't be here today." Rosa, Willow, Lion… Bishop, Leona… Kayla, Franny… "But we will," she went on. "The genie's out, etc, etc…"

"Good," he nodded, kissing her once again, twice… "I started looking at names," he told her, and she perked up at once.

"Can I see? Can I see?" she quietly pleaded. Lucas chuckled.

"It'd be pretty rude of me to say I've been doing that and then keep it to myself."

"I wasn't going to say it, but now you did, so yes," Maya hummed, moving to settle next to him as he dug out the name book from his night stand. "I was wondering where that went."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners