Chapter 119
A Return to Form

Maya and Lucas got to live with this new pregnancy as a secret – from everyone except one professor and one very happy great grandfather – for all of four days before their friends and families were let in on the big news. It hadn't been their intention, but if it was anyone's fault then it was entirely their own. They weren't about to go and blame the baby when it was about the size of a grain of rice. More than anything, they pictured this as Maya's body realizing they were once again growing a Friar and getting way too eager about it right off the bat.

The first couple of days had been pretty straightforward. There wasn't any nausea of any kind, no symptoms at all really except for some bloating. That was fine. She was so happy that they had made it to this point, so nothing could touch her. Lucas was being his usual early pregnancy giddy dad self, watching for any cause to act in her aid in any way. Then Pappy Joe, who had given Maya the biggest hug the morning after they'd found out about the baby, looked like he was only waiting to get his third TV buddy. There was school, there was work, there were the boys, and the dogs, and the cats… It was life as usual.

Then on the third day… Oh, the queasiness felt as though it came on so fast, like it catapulted into her, and at once she was off to the races. Lucas was awakened by her hasty climb out of bed, and he got up to follow at once, only to remember what she'd made him promise. So, he went to do his best and see that the boys wouldn't catch on to what was happening. As soon as Pappy Joe came along to take Elliott and Noah downstairs, Lucas went down the hall to see how Maya was doing.

She looked so pale, sitting there on the floor, that it kind of startled him. She insisted that she was going to be fine, that she just needed to pick herself up and go have some breakfast, but it was hard not to feel himself instantly overprotective. Maya was a real trooper though, and as much as he'd always known it, there were just times when it felt even more evident. That morning, sitting to breakfast with the boys… He could tell she was clearly still feeling the aftermath of her wakeup call, but for the boys she was as close to normal, everyday Mommy as they would have known her.

It was harder to pretend when they weren't around, but after she'd had breakfast she'd started to feel better. They got ready, and then they left for school.

All through that day, the nausea never seemed far away. She'd been through this part twice already, yes, but already on day one she felt like it had never hit her this hard. She wasn't sick again, not after that time early in the morning, but it felt like she would be, again and again, so it wasn't that much better, was it? Diana and Farah certainly noticed that she wasn't doing well, and Maya felt like the only thing that really helped guard her secret was that she looked so miserable, and they didn't believe she even had the ability to lie. She said it was food poisoning, and they believed her.

And then the next day… She thought she managed it well enough, all things considered, but it was really more of the same from the day before. When they went to bed, she didn't even want to spoon with Lucas, as she feared it would trigger her.

And now today…

"I think maybe you should stay home today, get some rest," Lucas told Maya as he went and found her in the bathroom. She shook her head. "If I looked the way you look right now, you wouldn't let me out the door, not for anything. You'd tackle me if you had to," he pointed out. It made her laugh, but only for about two seconds, before she was called to the bowl once more. "Please, just humor me? Small favor? I'll owe you one."

"Fine…" she finally replied, her voice a shaky mess. "But you're going to school," she pointed 'at' him (she missed). "Pappy Joe can look after me."

"If it'll get you to stay here, sold. What about the boys?" he asked her. If they were here and she was here, they would want to be near her, wouldn't understand.

"My dad's coming with Alex for the day, ask him if he'll take them to their house instead."

Lucas didn't have time to make an actual call. By the time he'd gotten Maya to go back to bed, and then went and got her breakfast and brought it up, and got ready for school, it was doorbell time. Shawn and Alex were here.

"Grampa!" Elliott ran to meet the man, his little brother on his heel. Shawn was always on top of his game when it came to his grandsons. He ruffled one head of blond hair and another as they crowded at his legs. He had Alex perched in one arm but he set him down on his feet now, and Elliott and Noah moved to take their uncle's hands and lead him off, as they did most mornings. This left Shawn to nod to his son-in-law.

"Hey, I'm not too early, am I?"

"No, no, you're not," Lucas promised, then, "Thing is though… Any chance you could take the kids back to your house today?"

"Oh… Uh, sure, yeah, could probably do that. Why?" Shawn asked, and right there came the first failing. He hadn't come around to any sort of reason why they needed to change plans, and it took him too long to come up with anything to say. "Everything alright?"

"Yes…" Lucas answered, though in his head it had sounded like he was asking a question, not answering one. Shawn frowned. "Maya's not feeling well, she's staying here today, so we figured the boys won't get that and, well…"

"Not feeling well how?" Shawn asked, moving to climb the stairs and find his daughter.

"No, well, it's just…" Lucas followed, but he still couldn't think of what to say, and then Shawn was already walking up to their room.

"Dad…" Maya blinked when she saw him. She wasn't having much better luck coming up with words either, but to make matters worse, well… she looked more or less the way she felt, didn't she? When she saw Lucas pop up behind her father, with that big 'I'm sorry, I froze up' kind of look, she sighed.

"Hey, what's the matter, when did this start, what…" Shawn slowly asked. He came and sat on the edge of the bed, reached over to feel her forehead.

"It's no big deal, guess morning sickness is being especially aggravating this time around," she explained. There'd been no point trying to tiptoe around it, not for a second. The way she saw it, the line of questioning would have brought them to this point whether she dealt with it now or whether they beat around the bush for five minutes.

As was to be expected, though he still felt for Maya in her present condition, the revelation that she was having another baby was met with tremendous joy. Shawn looked like he wanted to hug his daughter but resisted the urge, due to her nausea. Maya understood this, so she pointed to Lucas. Shawn didn't miss a beat and he went and hugged his son-in-law until his feet didn't touch the ground. As crappy as she felt, it made Maya smile.

Of course, once this had happened, they had a new choice to make. They could figure that Shawn would be the only one, that he would keep the secret, and that'd be that, and they'd have a few more weeks of fetal anonymity. But then that morning's encounter had forced them to face the facts. They had people out there who would realize that something was off, and bit by bit they would get to a point where it would no longer be in their power to decide when or how they told the world of their new baby. Maya wasn't exactly feeling in a cheerful mood in that moment, but she had to consider that she would be this way for a few more days, maybe, before – hopefully – things went back to the way they'd been before, the other two times. It wasn't perfect, but at least it happened in the morning and then it was over. This was more, and people would catch on.

"I can help," Shawn declared, sounding like a father – and a grandfather – on a mission. His daughter was in… something like distress, and he could be of use in doing this thing for her in as close to the way she might have wanted to do it if it wasn't for… well… the whole super nausea situation. Plus, well, he wanted to participate in springing the surprise, because those were always a lot of fun.

"Well, I'm not exactly in a great space for coming up with ideas, so what do you two have?" Maya asked of her husband and her father. Lucas and Shawn looked to one another.

"Right, well, who are we telling? Katy and the kids…" Lucas started.

"Yeah," Shawn smiled to himself. "Your folks," he pointed back, and Lucas nodded. "And the Harts, too."

"Riley and Dylan, and Zay and Nadine, and Asher and Ray, and Sophie and Chiara, and Rosa, Farkle and Isadora…"

"I'll have to tell Diana and Farah, they'll wonder why I'm not there," Maya offered, adjusting her position and her pillow. "So if you wanted to tell your people at school…"

"If you walk in there with that face, you're going to have to tell a lot of people," Shawn teased his son-in-law.

"And the boys…" Maya spoke up again. They looked at her, and she looked to Lucas, smiling. That one, they'd get to do together, definitely in person. It wasn't ideal, but if this was going to last any amount of time, they were going to notice something was up sooner or later.

"Wait, I got it, I got it," Shawn sat up, then turned back to his daughter. "Do you trust me?"

"Always," she vowed.

"I'll be back. Is it alright if I leave Alex with you?" he asked, and Maya and Lucas both agreed. "Great, I'll try and make it quick," he stood, paused, turned to Maya again. His face read like he'd meant to lean in and hug her, or kiss her cheek, her forehead, something, but in light of her current state, he opted for presenting her with a fist she gladly bumped. "Love you, kid."

"Love you, too, Grandpa," she smirked.

"Oh, it's Grampa out here," he corrected her. And he was gone.

"You need to get going," Maya told Lucas.

"I can miss one class," he shook his head and, when she looked primed to argue against this, "It's for a good cause."

Lucas soon went down the stairs, where the morning viewing party was already in session. Elliott and Noah sat on the carpet, the first with Shadow the cat in his lap with his arms loosely around her as she sometimes looked up at him, sometimes at the screen, and the other laid almost on top of the reposing Trix as though the dog were a pillow. On the couch, Pappy Joe had Alex sat in his lap, and he would tell the boy about what was happening on the television, to the point where the almost two and a half-year-old might have been able to conjure up whatever image his young mind could create out of the words. Whatever that image was, he was enthralled.

After explaining his delay for school with brief words and significant head tilts, Lucas 'borrowed' his sons and brought them upstairs.

"You don't go?" Elliott asked his father as they went. "You have to go to the school, Daddy."

"I am, I'm going, in a little bit," Lucas bit back a laugh.

"Mommy?" Noah asked. She hadn't left yet either, they knew that much.

"Yeah, we're going to see Mommy right now. No jumping around, alright? We're being gentle today, because Mommy is not feeling well." Elliott looked back at him. He was almost three, he knew enough to understand this could mean something bad was happening with his mother. "She'll be alright, it's only a little bad and then it'll go away," Lucas promised him, and if there was one thing Elliott Friar could hold to it was that his parents would keep their promises.

In the brief time she'd been left alone, Maya had gone ahead and done her best to make herself look slightly more presentable, so they wouldn't go and spook the boys. This was mostly accomplished by her sitting up, pushing the pillows at her back, pulling her hair in some semblance of normalcy. Taking her phone to get a look at herself, she was glad to see she didn't look too pale anymore, even if she still felt like she looked an inch from death in her eyes. Once they got through with the boys, she would try and get some sleep. Hopefully, it would help her feel human again. Not even on her worst days the first two times had she felt the way she did this day and the previous one. She knew it could be like this, but now to experience it…

When Lucas came along with the boys, Elliott looked mildly worried, his little brow furrowed, while Noah seemed both curious and confused. For her part, Maya saw them and instantly felt happier. It was the effect they had on her, every time.

"Hey, come here," she smiled, holding out her hand. Elliott looked up to his father and Lucas nodded, so off he went, climbing up on the mattress. "Oh, you're getting really good at that," Maya complimented as he crawled over and sat himself at her side. "Hey, bud," she touched his head. Lucas picked up Noah here and brought him to sit near his brother while he sat behind them both.

"Mommy, are you okay?" Elliott spoke quietly, like he'd been told to be careful and he interpreted this to extend to his voice as well.

"Yeah, not so hot today, but it's going to pass," she promised him and Noah both. "I don't mind though, because there's a reason, a very good reason," she went on.

"Why?" Noah asked. It was getting to be his favorite word, to less patient people's grievance. Maya turned a smile to Lucas, who gave one back.

"Because there's a baby, right in here," she tapped a finger to her belly, specifically to the spot where it felt she was definitely getting rounder. "It's very, very small right now, but it's growing in Mommy's belly, and in a little while it's going to come out, and you're going to have a new little brother or sister."

They may have been very small, too small to grasp the concept to its very fullest, but they understood 'baby,' and they definitely understood 'brother or sister.' They both had a brother – each other – and they knew what a sister was, Alex had three of them, one of them their own mother, although they didn't seem entirely convinced, like how could their mom be his sister, she was a big person compared to them. More than once, when they would be reminded of this fact, they would act as though they had completely forgotten it, or they didn't believe it to be true.

"Here?" Noah reached over his little hand and placed it where his mother had pointed.

"Yeah, in there," Maya confirmed. "That's where you were once, and Elliott, too. You were still very small, so you probably don't remember," she explained to her older son.

"Here?" Noah asked again, this time sounding more like he couldn't believe it, couldn't understand how that was possible.

"The baby's going to grow, and Mommy's going to get bigger, too," Lucas told him. "And when it's a little bigger, you're going to be able to feel it move when you put your hand there like that."

"You would give great big kicks in there," Maya told him. "You've been active like that ever since," she chuckled. "Do you remember when there were all those leaves on the ground? And you'd jump around in the big piles?" They both did, and they nodded with the energy of two boys who'd loved it very much. "Well, when there's going to be leaves like that again, that's when the baby will come. It's going to be a while, you guys will have had another birthday by then." Realizing that Elliott would be coming on three and a half by then felt just impossible. They were both growing up so fast.

"We cross the days?" Elliott asked.

"On the calendar?" Maya asked back and he nodded.

"Well, it might not come the day it's supposed to. Sometimes babies come early, or late," Lucas explained. "But I don't see why not. It's going to be a long time though, a lot of pages." That didn't bother them, so Lucas promised he'd have that set up for them so they could count the days until their baby sibling was born.

With the news given, Noah wanted to go back downstairs to Pappy Joe and Alex, so Lucas took him up and set him on his feet.

"Need a hand?" he offered Elliott, even if he generally didn't. Sometimes, he took the help anyway. Today though, he didn't move away.

"I want Mommy," he looked back to Maya. It made her smile.

"You want to stay here a little while?" she asked, brushing at his hair. He nodded. "Okay, then, come here," she pulled back the blankets and he came to lie next to her. She still felt queasy to the point where the word seemed to lack, but with her son's small body curled up to hers, she felt like she could almost focus on him and forget the rest. You are your father's son, through and through, she thought to herself as she drifted off to sleep.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners