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 6th 2023

Chapter 96
We Change And We Don't

It was a comfort, strange as it could sound, to know that he wasn't the only one out there that day who was having difficulty ignoring what was going on with the Friar sisters. Even if they weren't together for the better part of the day, with him at the ranch and her at school, Lucas and Maya would be as of one mind, and it really was that: a comfort.

Of course, with how it had been going on for a little while now, people at the ranch were aware of the problem, and they would greet his arrival with a sympathetic smile, suggesting their confidence that this would all be forgotten before long. He believed it, too, but he had to admit that it felt good to see that they believed it, too. Now, today, they might have had a shot, something to unite them under a single mind: it was the return of group days, and the return of bandannas with them. They were still of red, and green, and green, and green, and because they hadn't yet decided how they would work things out now that they had one little sister at home and another in preschool, they still had two in white.

Lucas knew that Maya would want to know as soon as possible about how the girls were doing, so he'd promised to send her updates once he did pickups. The first one was maybe the one that had been on their minds the most, for reasons beyond the ongoing tiff. He was on his way to collect their brand new preschooler from her first day in Miss Alma's class.

When he came along, she was in full Mack Attack mode, playing with some of the toys on hand. He had a feeling she would have gone straight for those that her sisters had told her were their favorites from when they'd been there, too, and he was right. She was so caught up in her play, full of energy and holding several of her classmates' attention, that she didn't immediately see him there. She looked like she could have been an actress on a stage, keeping her audience enthralled. It would be a well cherished video in the family, especially with Nana Katy.

When she did see her father, Mackenzie forgot any and all other things in order to run at him and throw her arms around his legs. He was there and, yes, she had missed him, but also his presence meant that she'd soon be on her way to the ranch. He reunited her with her bandanna here as had been the plan... before everything had gotten the way it was now. Lucas hoped to maybe help his daughters remember how excited they'd been together.

Mackenzie always liked her white bandanna best when it was on her head, tied under her hair, and she would make it difficult for them to get it on her properly, not because she wouldn't sit still but because she'd be so vocally excited that they would just laugh and struggle not to lose their grip. Today, he tried to hurry as much as possible while doing it right, so they could move on to their next stop and be on time. He may have distracted her by entrusting her with her sisters' bandannas, to be handed out as they went to the elementary school.

It wasn't so long ago that Lucas and Maya had been dropping off their triplets for their first day of preschool, or that they'd gotten to notice just how Kacey, Remy, and Lucy were struggling to venture out on their own, as a unit and as individuals. It had been a whole process to get them to integrate with their classmates and be okay with doing things apart from one another. Now, to bring them into yet another new environment, with some familiar people along for the ride but many, many more strangers and such a larger space... They hadn't known what to expect this day to be for them or how they would cope with it.

When Lucas and Mackenzie arrived to collect them, the triplets were roughly where their parents had figured they would be, and that was really the best outcome they had envisioned. They absolutely showed signs of needing to adapt, of being uncertain in this place they didn't know, but they hadn't gone back to the sort of playing on their own, keeping away from most people thing they'd done in earlier days of preschool. They were playing with their friends, Sammie, Felicity, and Barry, but it didn't look like they were doing it in order to be apart from everyone else. They looked happy.

This was nowhere near their happiness when they saw their father and little sister had arrived. It was time to go! They said goodbye to the others - the trio they'd be reunited with in no time, other green group kids in the room, and even others who'd been complete strangers to them that morning - and went to grab their things. Mackenzie held out the green bandannas, and there was a quick debate on how they would wear them that day before they could go and find Marianne.

"How was it today? Good?" Lucas asked the triplets as they walked just ahead of him. He had Mackenzie by the hand, and she followed without really paying attention, instead waving the red thing in her hand, looking so utterly amused with herself.

"Yeah, it was really, really great!" Remy twirled about to tell him.

"Teacher's so nice, and she's very pretty. Her hair is all colors!" Kacey described, touching her head.

"Wow!" Lucas chuckled. "How about you, bun? Good?" he asked Lucy as he saw that she looked a bit conflicted. She nodded. "Something wrong?" he asked her.

"I... I miss... Miss Alma," she admitted, with the smallest of lip quivers, and he might have gone to hug her for it, but the twins beat him to it.

"It's okay, Lucy," Kacey nodded, while Remy pulled a move she had seen and received from her parents many times by putting her hand around her sister's head and kissing it in a light and reassuring way. From Lucy's smile, it looked like it worked.

Marianne was the only one of them not starting at a new school that day. She had only gone up one class, and for her being up to the third grade by now, she was far from being unsettled. Then again, she'd never had the kinds of issues that her little sisters had had when entering a new stage like this. Lucas saw her now, as he found her in the gym, and she just looked happy to be back. She knew this place very well after attending the school for three years. The way she would talk about it, they would see what she saw. Her favorite spots, her favorite things... She was tossing a ball with her friends which they knew from the mark on its side as her favorite, the one she'd always hurry to get because she thought it was the best one.

Seeing her out there, with kids from her grade and from grades four through six all around her, it was impossible not to see how she could be mistaken for one of those older kids with how tall she was among her classmates. She was the tallest in her class the year before and her teacher had been in the habit, when lining them up, to simply put her on the end, disregarding the alphabetical order. It had annoyed her, not because she didn't understand - she did - but because of how some of the other kids, the boys especially, would tease her for it. She never rose up to the challenge, but it didn't mean that it didn't affect her at all.

This year, as Lucas would learn when she'd come hurrying toward him, she would at least have some manner of solidarity in her class. Her teacher, Miss Ingrid, was very tall, too, and she'd told Marianne how things had been when she'd been her age and tall like her. She loved her teacher already and couldn't wait to spend the year with her.

"Red for you, Annie!" Mackenzie rushed up to hand over the bandanna like she could not wait any longer.

"Thanks, Mack!" Marianne took it and tied it on at once to match her. Mackenzie approved.

The ride to the ranch was so full of talk that it could have seemed as though all was well again, but Lucas knew better. He could sense the divide that still existed because it was so very... contrary... to what their usual relationship was that it was almost like a visible chasm to him. He tried not to put so much thought into it, but it just hurt to see them and know that all was not well.

So, it would take more time. He hadn't grown up with siblings himself, especially sisters, so maybe some of that played into it. Maya hadn't either, despite how many sisters and brothers she had, and that only hurt more in her case. All either of them had really experienced was seeing those groups grow up together, looking in from the outside. They were now learning together, watching their daughters grow as sisters.

If they wanted something good to focus on, they had no further to look than Sullivan Stables as they arrived. Balloons had been hung around the arch, in the group colors, to welcome the children to another year of their after-school program, and the girls were very excited to see these. That only grew as they drove in and saw the other kids who'd either arrived already or were arriving now, like them, with so many green, and blue, and red, and yellow, and somewhere in their midst, one single white, perched on the shoulders of a man.

"Aubrey's there! And Pappy Tom! And Mommy!" Lucy called, louder than she'd been back in the school, which made her father smile even as the excited noises in the minivan increased.

And it was a loud and giddy reunion, as it would be. So many hugs, and kisses, and stories that wanted to be told and could not be held to dinner time entirely. It got even better as they found big sister Ella coming along with Tori all set for blue group. It had been her greatest pleasure, that morning to drop her daughter off at school and then that afternoon to pick her up and bring her to the ranch. She and Theo were still working out the details of their new custody/task splits, now that everyone was back in Austin, but this day, like the time after Ella and Taylor's return and wedding, needed to be hers and Tori's together.

"Hey," Lucas smiled when he and Maya finally had a moment to greet one another. She smiled back, folded herself into his open arms.

"Hi," she breathed out.

"That much, huh?" he asked, holding back a laugh.

"There was... an encounter? At the end of last period?" she awkwardly opened the subject, and it only took a moment for him to guess, already having heard that his father and Aubrey had been guests in art class.

"Ah..."

"Yeah..."

"How'd it go?" he asked, thinking of his father for the most part.

"Not how someone was hoping it would, I'd say," Maya smirked before giving him the essential rundown. "I didn't know she was in that deep about him. If I had any esteem for her at all..."

Without either of them saying it aloud, the day's event had made them wonder about Thomas, about what the future held for him. It introduced the still much too uncomfortable question of whether he would ever date anyone again and how that would feel for all of them. They could tell themselves all they liked that Melinda wouldn't want him to be alone, but there were still great, raw wounds that needed to heal first.

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners