A/N: Three days behind...

September 7th 2023

Chapter 250
We Unite Once More

They were almost sure that this coincidence was much less of a coincidence and a lot more of a purposeful inconvenience organized by Principal Davenport. That was getting to be her favorite way of tossing a problem at them. It didn't require a lot out of her except to have two events end up happening on the same day, forcing them to choose. There was no proof that this was what she was doing, except that it really felt way too obvious to those of them who were directly affected. Maya had been feeling it each time that parent night at the high school landed on the same night as the elementary school. It wasn't like it had suddenly started happening once the new principal had come along, but with her there…

This time, they were really sure this had been done on purpose. She had been so slow in locking down the dates for the class reunions, and she had only done it after Maya had put in the dates for the year's art auction. She'd split it over two nights because she'd never had so many submissions across the board, and now the ten and twenty year reunions were going to happen on those same two nights. Now she was sure that this had been done to spoil the night, rescheduling too late maybe, making it so people didn't show up to the auction…

Instead, they decided to run with it: they would just go ahead and combine the two events. It was going to be special, now that they could look forward to it… They had made certain to show how thrilled they were as they prepared, as the dates got closer, so the principal would see that her plan had backfired. Getting her to retreat grumbling back into her office was all the victory they needed.

"You finished your pieces, huh?" Maya smiled as she saw Agnes and Freddie carrying a pair of canvases into the gym along with the other juniors. Every day when she'd asked them how they were progressing, they'd kept promising that they were working on it, but they weren't done.

"Yeah, w… well…" Freddie looked to Agnes.

"We sort of… finished each other's paintings. Is that okay?" she asked their art teacher, hesitant.

"What? Of course, it is, let me see," Maya gestured, and they both held up their canvases for her to see. She could recognize their styles in one another's pieces, could see who had started, and how the other had woven their own voices in, to finish the work. Seeing this new relationship develop between the two of them this year had been great, and here in these two paintings, she could just see this dialog of young, nascent love… It was beautiful. "Wow…" she smiled.

"You like them?" Freddie asked.

"I love them. Might buy them right now, but that would kind of be cheating, wouldn't it?" she told them. They smiled back; they didn't mind her cutting the lines at all.

Once the paintings for the senior and junior classes had been installed in their gallery corner, the rest of the gym underwent its transformation, the better to host the returning students from the class of 2030 that evening. Every year, this one reunion felt so special to Maya because it would bring back her former students to the place where she had known and taught them all. She knew that in a few years she would be able to say the same of the twenty year returnees as well, but she was not there yet, so they wouldn't get into it just now.

Rather than have to run back home to change and then return, Lucas had offered to bring her things at lunch, so she could get ready right at the school. That was what she did, when the time came, and she finished just as Lucas arrived to join her and be her date for the evening. It wasn't as though this group needed any chaperoning anymore. They were all adults here, eager to see one another.

"Hey, you guys look great!" Maya smiled as she and Lucas approached the arriving pair of Dakota Day and Emma Hart-Lane. The former, of course, was here as a member of the reuniting class, and Maya couldn't help but laugh to herself, thinking how she would never have guessed, ten years ago when he'd graduated, and earlier still, when he'd been part of her first ever sophomore class, that he would someday be well in line to become her brother-in-law. Oh, there hadn't been any proposal or firm talk of marriage as of yet, but it was the kind of unspoken subject that felt it was still very much right there. Some of the other siblings had started betting between themselves when it would happen and who would pop the question.

"She couldn't wait to get here," Dakota shared, grinning over to Emma, who was indeed looking very bouncy on her feet, smiling broadly.

"I don't know, it's like I finally get to sort of pretend like I went here, like I got to have you as my teacher," she looked to her sister. Maya nodded back at her. She would have loved to have her as one of her students, budding designer that she was.

Lucas always liked attending these reunions, if only so that he got to see how happy they made his wife now that her former students were the ones gathering back in the gym for a bit of reminiscing. She was still in touch with a lot of them in one way or another, through letters, or personal connections, or for frequenting the same places, stores, restaurants… Some of them had by now gained some notoriety on their own, and ever since his father had pointed out how it reminded him of his late wife, at any and all of Lucas' achievements, and Maya's, and their daughters'… he couldn't unsee it.

He saw it that night, when they spied Daphne Brett standing in the gallery of student art. Both the Brett sisters were getting to be known out in the world now. Stevie of course was the star of Goldenheart, the spinoff to Heart of Texas, while Daphne had gone and published her first novel just last year. It had been climbing the charts ever since, and now there was talk of a movie adaptation. Word was that Daphne wanted to make it work so that her little sister got to star in it, her heroine being an amalgamation of Stevie herself and of their mother. No official announcement had been made yet.

"Maya," Lucas tapped her arm, something he did several times that night, as though he was constantly keeping an eye out for those she'd be most eager to see. When he directed her to spot Ariel Su, her feet moved before her heart had finished its short leap. Ariel turned her head and saw her, too, and she moved to meet her halfway. Without a word, they met up, and Maya embraced her former student. Ariel hugged her back, stayed there for several seconds until they finally pulled back and smiled at one another. Ariel had happy tears in her eyes, and Maya reached up to carefully wipe them away.

"Welcome back," she told her, and Ariel nodded.

The former Born Curious captain stayed along with her former teacher and her husband at the end of the night to pick up around the gym and clear the way for the next evening's event. She returned the next afternoon, too, the better to help set up for the twentieth reunion and the auction for the freshman and sophomore classes, much to Maya's appreciation. They got to talk some more, and Maya got to see much more directly the young woman that Ariel had become. She'd seen her in the decade since she'd graduated, yes, but the bulk of their interactions had been through letters every few months. This was different, this was the version of Ariel Su that didn't have the benefit of careful consideration and editing in her words, in her actions. She'd spoken of recent struggles, and Maya could see some of that here. She had not been her teacher in ten years, but now that she was back in Austin, maybe there was still more she could do for her… somehow.

The class of 2020 was no stranger to Maya or Lucas, and this time around, it was much more even of a playing field as they navigated the gym. These were people they'd gone to school with, people who'd graduated just a year ahead of them, which made it infinitely impossible for them to ignore the fact that their twentieth high school reunion was only one year away. They were a lot more comfortable in their awareness of time passing than some others, most of the time, but they had to admit that this one felt just a little too massive for comfort.

"Maybe it's a good thing that we're thinking about all that right now and not next year," Maya reflected as they walked through the pop-up art gallery.

"Time to adjust?" Lucas suggested, and she smiled.

"Yeah, something like that." They paused, looked at each other. Both their eyes screamed 'twenty years, can you believe it?' It made them laugh. "I remember when all I wanted was to get to a point where… I would have known you longer than I hadn't known you, that we would have been together longer than we were apart…"

"We definitely got there," Lucas nodded, recalling.

"And then some," she hummed.

They stopped in front of the piece submitted by Max McAllister. She was so glad that, even though she hadn't been in class in months, the sophomore girl had insisted on creating something for the auction. Max Farrell had brought it in for her, along with his own piece, and now here both of those hung side by side. Max had snuck in earlier, the better to take a picture and send it to his best friend.

"When this is all over, I heard some of the others are looking to have a shoot-off," Lucas shared, giving a nod over to the basketball hoop, which had been cranked into its upward, out of the way position. Looking around, Maya could spot their former teammates of the class of 2020 eyeing it, too.

"Oh, I know it will. The girls all stowed away their sneakers in the art class," she confessed, and the way it made Lucas burst out laughing, she broke right along with him. There was really no escaping it, not with all of them, the Lost Seasons teams…

When all was said and done and they went home – with the pieces they'd won from this night joining those of Freddie Jacek and Agnes Killian, which they had indeed bought together – they were as exhausted as they were satisfied for what the two nights had turned into. Though she had absolutely not intended to do so, Principal Davenport had really enabled them to have a great auction and reunions this year. They knew it would probably not end there, not with her, but they wouldn't worry themselves over it now.

"Do you think if we ask for the auction to happen at the reunions again next year, her head will actually explode?" Maya wondered aloud as she walked around their room with Ezra in her arms, getting him back to sleep after their return had awakened him and looking wonderfully overdressed for the activity. It was enough for Lucas to need a moment to process what she'd asked and, once he did, it made him work to keep from laughing too hard and risk waking the baby again.

"Not that we'd want that to happen, would we?" he asked her. She looked back at him, lips pressed to the top of their son's head and eyes squinting. No, of course they would not… but anything that achieved the effect in her mind… Now that would do just fine.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners