A/N: Four days behind...

September 8th 2023

Chapter 251
We Unite On Two Stages

The Friar house was a musical house, always had been and, unless something drastic happened, always would be. A lot of it had come out of Maya being there, but it wasn't just about her, and the bands, and her songwriting, no. It was in appreciation as well as performance, it was in how music could inhabit them, give them energy, touch them… and Lucas had plenty of that, too. There had been Maya's siblings as well, their lodgers across the years, and now more than ever there were their children. All of them together, they made this house into something so alive with music, always, but right now they might have been as deep into it all as ever, and it came down to two musicals. One was the one to be performed at the high school, and the other where Marianne Friar would be one of two girls playing the role of Jane Banks. The school was having its premiere in no time, and when the production of Mary Poppins gave its first performance, Marianne would be their Jane.

She had been waiting to hear whether it would be her or her new friend and fellow Jane who would go on that night. It wasn't that it had to be her, and that whoever didn't get to play Jane first would have lost. She really just couldn't wait to go on already. She had loved each of her roles so far, as Young Cosette, as Annie, now as Jane, all of them for their own reasons, and she was always so invested in what she did. When it came down to it, the choice had been made by picking which of the two girls had signed up for auditions first, which was about as fair as they could make it. In return, Erica would get to be the Jane on closing night, and the girls both saw this as an acceptable solution. Now, with the days drawing nearer and nearer to the premiere, Marianne could barely stand still, and everyone in Friar house was undergoing Poppins fever. This was good news and bad news, depending on how much one could endure of tap shoes and small girls spell-singing their way through Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. The funniest was and always would be Aubrey, who would jump and shimmy whenever she knew she was close to getting to the end of the word, whether or not she knew what she was even saying.

While all this was going on, there was also a whole lot being done revolving around the high school's musical. This was very familiar to everyone involved, depending on how long they had been at the school and doing musicals, whether this was their first year and all they had to go on were stories told, or this was their second, third, or fourth go around, or if they had been in this for several years, for as long as their school had even been doing musicals again on a steady, yearly basis. They had a steady rhythm to it by now. Auditions would roll out, and they'd get started figuring out the first steps, start rehearsing here, try and spot what might need perfecting there…

And then they'd get to the parts they looked forward to the most. They would start into their lunch time sessions – working around the principal and her 'innocent' roadblocks – and they'd start seeing costumes and sets come together… and they would have their Chubbie's show nights. Those were easily the kids' favorite thing about being in the musical, right above the lunch sessions and right under eventually performing the actual show. Their nights up on the Chubbie's stage were something so free, something that called on to their creativity, their individual talents… It allowed them to get a taste of performance in a space that was so much more open, casual, which wasn't to say that the school musical was the opposite of that, but then they tended to want the musical to go off just as they'd practice it, while the Chubbie's shows… embraced the unpredictable.

If that was what they were after, having TXNY thrown into the mix certainly went a long way. The band had been so eager to get involved with the school, with their bandmates' work. Maya had known just what to expect from them, and she loved to see it anyway. It was like they all reverted back to who they had been back when they'd been in high school themselves. She'd known them all at that time, whether they'd been classmates or not. She was partial to seeing her Riley, her Honey, rise out of the years.

When the day of their premiere came along, they had their last rehearsal. Rather than risk any kind of interference on the part of their principal, they had this rehearsal not at the school but at the Silvan Hughes Theater. There was enough concern for sabotage that they had set in assurances, keeping set pieces secured, costumes, props, anything at all, even the auditorium itself. Maybe she wouldn't stoop to those levels, but they really couldn't say for certain, so here they were.

Never minding why they'd ended up here in the first place, the kids loved doing their rehearsal on a 'real' stage. It distracted them at first, but they quickly got over it. They were too excited to be there not to make the absolute most of it. They did their rehearsal, and they gave it their all. They couldn't have done any better if they tried, but Maya, Morgan, and the rest of TXNY looked on with great confidence that they would take this last rehearsal with them and maybe find great new heights within themselves.

"You all were great out there," Maya beamed, throwing an arm around her little brother. MJ was never one to shy away from public affection out of his big sisters – not that they'd leave him much of a choice – but the best part was always when any of them would get to catch him in his emotions, and this day definitely brought some of those out of him. This was his last 'last rehearsal' day, his last premiere day. He would be in college the following year, and it wasn't as though his opportunities for the stage would dry out, but… they wouldn't be this, and this had been a great four years of his life he'd never forget.

It would be a toss up to say which had been better, the rehearsal or the first full performance back at the school, with their sets, with their costumes, with the audience. There'd been no touching them that night, in every way. They didn't see Sandra Davenport that night, couldn't even say if she was in attendance, but it didn't matter. She was well out of their thoughts by the time curtain went up and she stayed out of there until after they'd given their bow.

"I can't wait until I get to be up there," Marianne declared, whispering to her mother as she hung on to her arm, sitting by her side and watching the performance with her. Maya smiled down at her, leaned to kiss the top of her head. Five years seemed like a long time most times, but the way her girls just kept sprouting taller and taller by the day, she couldn't see it feeling like it had been very long once they'd get there. And she could see very well the moment coming for her pumpkin to spend a solid four years doing musicals up on that stage like so many others had done before her…

If she gets the chance… If Sandra Davenport doesn't wreck this school before she gets to it…

She didn't want that staying on her mind, didn't want that to be something she believed would happen. They wouldn't let it. She wouldn't let it. Her baby girl would still have musicals to star in by the time she made it to high school, and she would until she graduated, so would her sisters if they so wanted it, so would her baby brother, too. She told Lucas as much as they got ready for bed, and he smiled and nodded. He could see it, too, and now she was seeing him… and her, too… watching her up there and feeling as moved to tears as when they had seen her in the musicals she'd done already. They were preparing to have another one of those any day now, and they were already feeling it form in their chests, sending their hearts in loops and whirls.

Their big little pumpkin slept between them the night before her premiere. She couldn't fall asleep back in her room, kept tossing and turning, thinking about when she'd be out there, and the wait was impossible, so they'd convinced her to crawl in with them. She'd insisted that it wouldn't work, but not three minutes later she'd been out like a light. She was getting so tall, she was catching up to her mother, but she was still very much their baby girl in every way, and she spent the night curled in under Maya's arm, her hand gripped on to her father's, and he didn't move it away from her for a second.

Once they were up though, it was all hands on deck as they got ready and started the drive out to the theater as soon as time came for them to head out. Marianne only had to put some clothes on, as she'd be getting changed into costume out at the theater, but everyone else had to get their theater best on, and they were so happy to go around when they were done, admiring one another. There had been a lot of pleading for them to bring Ezra along with them, so he could see the show. It didn't matter to the girls that their brother was barely half a year old and wouldn't get anything out of it except one reason after another to start crying as loud and as long as he could and rivaling the voices of his big sister and the rest of the cast. He'd have other chances… In five years, in high school…

The girls had been promised that they'd get to tell Ezra all about the musical when they got home, and that would be fun, and even though they were all either sleeping or a hair's breadth away from sleep by the time they got home, once morning would roll around, the very first thing they'd do once they got up, one by one, would be to head into their parents' room, the better to treat their brother with a story of premiere night. No one was near as excited for this, naturally, as Marianne herself was. She still had all that thrill of her first performance in her, and she told her side of it as she held the baby in her arms and whirled him along, recreating this moment or that one from the show. Ezra was enthralled all throughout, and it didn't matter whether or not he'd remember this or not. His big sister had his entire undivided attention, and she was the most entertaining thing in the world.

"He's getting so big already, isn't he?" Maya hummed as she and Lucas looked on to their firstborn and their youngest together, their sisters stood all around them. "Half a year…"

"They'll have him dancing around in no time," Lucas suggested, and she chuckled. She could see that very well. Ezra and his pack of sisters. To them, it felt at times that his birth parents, whoever they were, when they had decided to leave him at their door, it hadn't just been about Maya, and Lucas, a loving home with a new mom and dad. It had been all of them, too. Loving sisters to watch over him all the days of his life.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners