A/N: APRIL 9TH - Hey, guys, so we had a big storm up here on Wednesday the 5th, most people in the area lost power for the last few days, I got mine back yesterday but didn't get my internet back until today, so I couldn't post anything. Going to get the last few days' chapters posted ASAP!

April 9th 2023

Chapter 204
Colorful Leaves On A Tree

Jamie had needed a few more mornings to find his way toward not greeting his mother's departure for work as total abandonment, but thankfully for all involved – and his mother's heart first and foremost – he had made it to a better place. He was still very sad when she would go away, and he would cry and cling to her every morning, but after that he would allow himself to be put back on his feet and he would wave to her and watch her go with a small smile, still bright with tears but genuine nonetheless. All it had taken had been a routine between the two of them, which was inspired by the lending of his father's pocket watch.

Every morning now, Maya and Jamie would make a trade. He would choose something of his, and she would choose something of hers, and they would entrust it to one another for the day. They would carry it with them, and then it would be like they were together. They would trade back at the end of the day, when they were together again for real. Maya always did her best to impress on her son that this was for any day where they felt very strongly that they would miss each other that much, and if they didn't need it, if they could hold it steady on their own, they would just have a good squeeze of a hug and a kiss in the morning, until they could see each other again. This had been added as an amendment to 'the rules,' thinking ahead to when he would be older, in case this thing didn't resolve itself beforehand.

For a little over a week now, Maya had been giving her two and a half-year-old son anything from a pen, to a bracelet, to a picture for him to hold on to while she went to work, even as he gave her a little plush frog, or a Yoda figurine, or a picture book… She would take these with her to school, posting them on her desk, right where she could see them. Her favorite thing to do then would be to take a picture of herself with her object of the day, in her class, and sending it to whoever was watching Jamie and the twins that day. This would earn her back a picture of Jamie and his object, and it would be too funny to see how he would try and work the item into the shot. They hadn't made it to a day where he didn't need them to have a trade yet, but for now the important part was that he was coping, and they were finding their rhythm. The hope was that, in time, he might be brought out to the school along with the twins, at some point in the extended break between her morning and afternoon classes, either that or she would go out to meet them.

Maya wished he could know how glad it made her that he was finding his way. It made it significantly easier for her to make it through those days. As happy as she was to be back at work, and she truly, truly was, she missed being with her little boys, and she may not have been crying on the outside every time she left in the morning, but she still felt that tug that felt wholly anchored around her heart, and it was by no means reserved for her youngest three alone. Her two older boys both had birthdays coming up very, very soon, and that realization had never failed to catch her up, recalling when they'd been as small as their baby brothers and smaller still. Instead, Noah was about to be five years old, while Elliott… Elliott, her little sprout, would be six. Six! It never felt possible, to her and Lucas both, that he'd be a year older, and yet it always happened anyway.

And then their girl, their Sweetpea Ava… She hadn't given up on her birth father, hadn't stopped subconsciously or consciously seeking out Bill Nash, and they knew she probably never would, not so long as she didn't know where he was. But the days where she'd been hesitant to settle herself wholeheartedly into the Friar family were long gone. She had found her peace with who she'd been and who she was becoming, and the person she was becoming was a daughter to Lucas and Maya, a sister to Elliott, Noah, Jamie, Simon, and Jackson, a granddaughter and a niece to the Hunters, the Friars, the Hart-Bretts… They all meant so much to her, and whether she told them all in words or not, they knew it as well as she did.

Her little brothers were maybe the only ones who couldn't understand it as well, but for the others, it was clear. She had spent the first decade of her life being part of a family but also never quite feeling like she had that family, like she belonged with most of them. It was no wonder then that she'd seek to hold on to the people that hadn't made her feel that way. Her father, her uncle Owen… She hadn't known just how much it would weigh on her, not until she'd found herself at the heart of a vastly extended family like the Friars'. Even when she had only been a guest among them, they had welcomed her so instantly and with so much affection. And once she had become much more than a guest… She was their daughter, their sister, their niece, their granddaughter, and great granddaughter, and she never doubted for a second that the love they expressed toward her was anything else than real.

"Dad?" Ava went up to Lucas as he came down from the first floor, where they could hear the giggles of the boys where Maya was seeing them through bath time.

"Yeah?" Lucas asked, smiling as he caught the look in her eyes, the one he knew so well as her 'I have an idea and it's important' look. "What's on your mind?"

"Dinner," she told him.

"You didn't have enough of it?" he wondered.

"Not tonight's dinner," Ava clarified. "For tomorrow."

"Oh, that dinner," Lucas nodded. They were expecting a big party the following evening, from her perspective six grandparents, six aunts, four uncles, and one great grandfather and great grandmother. They didn't manage to get everyone together like that every week, though they would try. "And what about it?"

"Can I make it?"

"All by yourself? Dinner for twenty-four people?"

"No way, I'm only one person!" Ava responded at once. "I'll need help, obviously, and… Don't laugh," she pointed at him, and he pressed his lips together, tipped his head in apology.

"I would never," he promised before approaching her. "So, you want to be the one in charge, is that what you're saying? You want to pick the menu?" Now he had it. She nodded. "Alright, well, it's a bit late for that, isn't it? Everything's already in there, waiting to be made, and we can't just leave it there and start over," he kindly pointed out, especially as he watched this realization hit her. She wasn't about to make them waste or spend anything on a whim. "How about we do it your way the next time? Would that be okay with you?"

"Yeah… okay…" Ava replied, clearly disappointed even if she was glad that there was a plan for the future.

"This was really important to you, wasn't it?" Lucas guessed, and she looked at him. "What's up?" he asked. She hesitated, showing her state of mind as plainly as she could just by the way she stood there in front of him. "Is everything okay?" he tried again, coming nearer until he could stand before her.

"Yeah," Ava nodded.

"Are you sure?"

"I promise," she told him, and her smile reassured him. It hadn't taken her long, living in this house, to know the meaning of promises.

"Okay," Lucas nodded. "Next time then." He stood there a moment, trying to remember what he'd come down for in the first place before remembering and heading into the kitchen. As he rummaged through one of the drawers, Ava came up to stand next to him. He turned to look at her, found her staring at him with that same look again, but he guessed this had nothing to do with the dinner question. This was something else. "Come here," he motioned for her to follow and sit at the table with him, so she did. After they sat, she pulled her chair forward, straightened her posture, pushed her long hair behind her shoulders. Lucas smiled, echoed her shift. Serious stances for serious talks.

"I'm wondering something."

"You are," he replied, and she nodded. "Alright."

"I don't want to make a big deal out of this though. I'm just…"

"Wondering, I get it. And what are you wondering?" he asked her. Hesitation, brief, made her posture lose its solidity, just a little.

"Are you guys going to adopt me?"

The question was as direct as they came, and while he'd been matching her tone for tone, Lucas had not seen this line of questioning coming, not one bit, and he couldn't hide the surprise, the swift way it loosened his posture. She was still looking at him; she needed to know.

"Would… uh… Maybe we should wait for…" his eyes turned upward, thinking of Maya.

"I just want to know, that's all," Ava shook her head. "Please?" Lucas couldn't keep her waiting, didn't really have to.

"We won't do anything unless you want us to, okay? So, the first question is really… Would that be what you want? For us to adopt you?" With the question turned back toward her, Ava was quiet, considering. It was a big step, they all knew it, and for how they had been going, all of them, since summer's end, it might not have seemed like such a big change, but for her, with how much it had meant to her that her mother had left, and her brothers had abandoned her, and her father had gone away, and that she'd finally come to call them Mama, and Dad…

"I… I think so, I… Yes," she straightened up again, and Lucas smiled, did so as well, maybe so not to start and cry, even as he could feel himself get just a bit choked up. "So… are you going to?" she asked. "You want to, right?"

"Ava… It's always been up to you. Your mother and I, you… You've been ours in every way except on paper for as long as your father left you with us. The only reason we haven't done anything about it yet is because we wanted to be sure that it would be what you wanted. And now you're saying that you do want it, so of course… of course, we're going to," he nodded. She smiled now, turned her thoughts inward for a moment before looking at him again.

"What if… What if he comes back, and I'm just… I don't want him to be hurt that I chose this."

Lucas considered this for a moment before looking at her again. He asked her to follow him upstairs, and so she did. He took her over to his and Maya's room, opening a drawer and searching through it for a few seconds before pulling out an envelope, ripped on the side… Even as he held it out to her, she could see the writing on the side, recognize who had written it, and she tensed.

"This was… when he went away," Lucas explained. Ava looked at the envelope, then at him. "It's okay, you can read it," he assured her, so she took it. Her hands shook just a bit as she pulled the paper from the envelope and unfolded it.

They had always tried to be as honest as possible with her, to tell her what they knew when her father had run off, but those had been their words, their interpretation. These were his words, the ones that said he hoped to be able to return someday even though he didn't feel strong enough to say that he'd ever get there, the ones that confided his daughter, his greatest treasure, in the Friars, and the ones that spoke their unwavering support for them to become the family she'd always deserved but never gotten. He didn't say it outright, but the meaning was there. They had his full support to adopt Ava as their daughter.

Even as she stood there, fixed to the spot as she read her father's words, Maya came up to stand in the doorway and paused, wondering what was going on until she spotted what Ava held in her hands. Her eyes widened and she turned to Lucas, mouthing the words 'Why does she have that?' like every bit of her protective mama side had reared up. He didn't know how he could possibly explain it to her except by cutting to the chase and worrying about the details later. She wants to be adopted. He signed it, and he watched his wife's entire demeanor shift, protective in a whole other way. She stepped up behind Ava, touched her shoulder. Ava looked up and around, tears on her face, and she turned and hugged her mother. Maya closed her arms around her as loving and protective as one could be, and after a few seconds, Lucas came and crouched, knelt, and joined the embrace. Ava sensed him there and pulled one arm from around Maya that she might be hugging them both.

When there was need of one of them to go and see to the boys, back in their room, Lucas decided to go ahead and do it, so Ava and Maya could have a talk. Ava recounted what they had been talking about downstairs before they'd come up to look at the letter, and Maya listened, holding her and stroking her hair all the while. Once Lucas reappeared, Ava looked at him, at Maya.

"I don't want to do it right now," she told them. "I mean, I do, but… I want to wait, too."

"Whatever you need," Maya assured her.

"I just thought… Can we wait until my birthday? Then it'll be like… every year after that, it'll be my birthday and it'll be the day that you became my parents… on paper," she added with a small smile that made them laugh and cry at the same time. "I know it's in a while, like four months, but…"

"It'll give us time to prepare," Lucas gave her a confident nod and she nodded back.

"Oh, we can do even more than that," Maya smirked. "We do love a good countdown, don't we?"

"Yeah," Ava pressed her hands together with excitement, giving her father a good chuckle.

"The big question right now is… Do we want to tell everyone when they're here tomorrow?" Lucas asked them.

Ava did very much want to tell the family the next day, and though they couldn't change the entire menu, they did make some changes where they could, the better to allow her to put her touch on the event, what they'd come to lovingly refer to their announcement that there would soon be an official new Friar in the world. It had been very tempting to trick them into thinking for a moment that they were going to have another baby when they would in fact be 'having' a twelve-year-old just before the start of the next school year, but they had decided this would be better.

"Mama?"

"Yes, Sweetpea?"

"Was it weird when you changed your name?" Ava asked as she and Maya worked on the dessert together. Maya looked at her. "Just because that was what everyone called you all the time and then it wasn't."

"A little, at first," Maya admitted. "Only because I was used to it the other way. But it didn't last long. I was happy for my new name because of what it meant. And it was my choice. It didn't mean all those other years didn't matter anymore, but this was a new chapter."

"Yeah…" Ava nodded, agreeing. They kept working quietly for a while, enough so that Maya could just hear her daughter speaking quietly to herself, saying her name to herself, sounding it out as quietly but audibly as she could. She snorted despite herself, and Ava looked at her.

"Sorry," she whispered, but Ava just laughed. "As you were."

"It's like… it sounds weird at first, but the more I say it, it's better."

"Yeah, it usually is," Maya agreed.

"Would it be weird if I kept my first last name but as a middle name or something?"

"Baby girl, you can do whatever you want. It's your name."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners