A/N: [July 7th 2024]

September 27th 2023

Chapter 270
We Ask For Hopes

Lucas wished the girls could see how funny they looked from his perspective. They'd attended the year's 'graduation' up at Sullivan Stables, seeing the kids in the various groups of the afterschool program move up from one group to another if they had reached that age, and they were bummed out that they hadn't been one of those kids. Were they in any way displeased by the groups they were in? No, of course not. But it looked fun, it was fun, they remembered, and they would have loved to get brand new colors to wear when group days would resume.

Maya and Lucas had been doing their best now to remind them that they were excited to return to their groups, with the kids who had been part of their groups for however long they'd been in one of them. The little sisters had not yet left their initial step in green group, so theirs was a whole separate point of view, but if their big sisters could be convinced that this wasn't a bad thing, then they would sooner or later discover the same thing for themselves, too.

One girl in Friar house had been granted a new set of bandannas, though to be fair she'd had none to replace. It would be her one and only set, her only group, as she'd be homebound before she could experience her second year, but Shonagh would soon be donning the colors of yellow group along with Marianne. When she'd gotten to step up and get her bundle, no one had remembered that they were in any way mopey over their unchanged state. The girls had jumped up and down and cheered for her, and it had maybe been the XC's favorite experience since arriving in Austin… next to her first trip to Ma Maggie's, to hear it out of her.

"We all keep coming up with new ways of wearing ours," Marianne informed their guest as she returned to sit by her side. "I'll show you when we get back."

"Alright," Shonagh grinned.

She had not been with them very long yet, but she did feel like she had become part of the family already. They all certainly cared for her so very much, and in that, for Maya and Lucas especially, concern would exist and expand. Everything was good and fine now because it was summer, and she was going to camp, and swimming, and having a grand ol' time. The concern was that, once school started and that routine set in, that bubble would burst, and the reality would be revealed. She was going to be away from home for months and months, and they knew that she had never done anything like that. They foresaw homesickness taking hold of her, so swift and unforgiving… But they would be there, and they would look out for her. She was one of them now.

There in the great group of ten to twelve-year-olds in yellow along with them that day was also Giulia Choi, who was now one year away from trading in her colors and joining the ranks of teal group, as she had just rung in her twelfth birthday.

She was up there with some of the eldest of the junior turtles, and even though those beneath her were all slowly but surely crossing those same milestones she'd done, it never stopped being incredible to realize how fast she was growing, and the same went for Mia Babineaux, for Ada Marie Minkus… They were five days onward from Megan Orlando's birthday, and they were headed toward another dinner with their friends to celebrate a daughter's birthday, just as their friends would do the same for them and their girls in just a few more days. As to her entire dilemma with the girls at her school, there was really no right or wrong way to handle it, not so long as it all ended with Giulia having the birthday that she both wanted and deserved. She had true friends, and those were the ones she had invited to the house. As for the others, she wouldn't worry herself too much. Those who knew her would know where she stood.

They all went their separate ways after the ranch event, all to get ready and switch gears for the dinner at the big house. When they finally took off, they looked forward to everything they would do and everyone they would see just as much if not more. They definitely were seeing a lot of one another as of late, with all these birthdays, and none of them were about to complain about that, not for a second. They were especially happy about how much they got to see of the Minkus family, as they had decided to spend some time in Austin, getting them through August Girls season and through the Babineaux party. For those turtles who'd been around at the time, it reminded them of when Farkle and Isadora would spend their summers in Austin, at the elder Friars' house, at the Hunter Hart house… It was thrilling for all of them for that reason, and for the kids in a brand new way, as they got to see so much more of Ada and Bertie, who they all cherished as part of their extended and distanced family.

As they drove on their way to mark the eldest of the 'SCAR' kids, they would start and think of when this plan of their friends' had seemed so massive and outlandish, because how could it not? Sophie and Chiara here, Asher and Ray there, all of them setting to cross and combine and create the family they yearned for… Giulia had been the start, and after her, each new child that came into the world made it clearer and clearer that it wasn't as strange as it might have first seemed.

They'd gotten Connor, and as he now stood at the age of ten, he might have sometimes shown a certain awkwardness at how his older sister always came off so bright and wonderful, but he was a great kid, too. He had so much of his parents in him, whether or not they shared his DNA, or had carried him for nine months… Actually, of his four parents, he might have been closest and most like the one of them who'd played no part in his physical existence except in support. He had no aspirations of being a doctor like Ray, but he had all the parts of him that made him so caring to others.

After him, there was Jae, himself just a couple months shy of his eighth birthday. There was still a lot of room for him to feel as though he hadn't found his own lane in life yet, and this was also true of the twins, five and a half-year-old Valentina and Santiago, and definitely true of two and a half-year-old Violet. But they all had that happy mix of Sophie, Chiara, Asher, and Ray in them, some in greater quantity than others, and it had been the best sort of unexpected blessing for them to get to see them all more, to watch them grow from nearer, once they'd moved to Austin.

When they pulled up to the house, they were treated to the sight of birthday girl Giulia Choi, her yellow bandana tied around her long, dark ponytail, which swung this way and that as she played opposite one of her fathers. The ball was not long for Ray's hands that it would find its way into Giulia's, and up she'd go, and swish, the ball would sail through the net, to the girl's cheer. She'd run circles around him, literally and figuratively, to mark this victory, and Ray would just stand there, humbly taking it, because this was his big girl, his firstborn, and he could only be in awe of her, something his friends easily understood and sympathized with.

"We always said she'd be unstoppable if she got Chiara's looks and your hair, and now look at her," Maya teased Ray as the two of them and Lucas stood back and watched Marianne square up against the birthday girl for a quick match while her sisters stood around them and cheered.

"She's heard," Ray admitted with a grin. "If anyone's going to be up to the challenge, it'll be her."

"Not too long now before you get to be on the school team, huh?" Lucas smiled when they were finally headed inside the house and the birthday girl found herself walking alongside him. "If that's what you want."

"Oh, it is," Giulia replied with a great big nod.

"I sense a 'but' coming," Lucas gave her a look, which made her laugh. "Got something else in mind?"

"I want to be on the girls' team, I'm going to be on the girls' team," she vowed, and he fully believed that her confidence was valid. "But I can do more than throw a ball and score."

"So much more," her father endorsed the statement, making her grin before she turned back to Lucas.

"I think I could be really good on the quiz team," Giulia declared, and there was no question which of the two she had her sights set on. Maya knew this, too, and hearing her words, she was filled with great eagerness at the thought of having her or any of her friends' children in her classroom. Giulia was right in that she could be great for Born Curious. Although now to think about it and how close they were to it being a reality, she was also reminded of the fact that Mia Babineaux was out there, an equally stellar candidate. There was only one spot for a freshman on each of the two teams, and if both of them had this thought of being on her side of it, then… Oh, now she was dreading the moment as much as she'd looked forward to it. She did not want to have to pick between her turtle nieces, no way.

"Not there yet, not there yet," Lucas spoke quietly at her ear, pressing a kiss to the side of her head, as though he'd pulled the thought right from her mind. "Still twelve, see? A lot can happen between now and then."

"And then one day we'll blink and it'll be here," she countered. He couldn't argue with that, but he added another kiss for good measure. "Thanks," she sighed. He kissed her again. "Okay, come on before I forget where we are. Slippery slope, I can count on one hand the years until she's my student," she nodded her head over to their firstborn.

"Okay, you're hopeless now," he sighed with sympathy and just a bit of the feeling as though her concerns had started to rub off on him.

They would eventually stop with all their parental doom and gloom in favor of getting lost in Giulia's Day. They played, they swam, they watched her favorite movie with her… There was music, like the stars were starting to align for some new, future incarnation of TXNY was starting to manifest itself… Not that they went and thought about that for too long. That was just another way that they could start and think about those high school dilemmas that were a problem for their future selves. Giulia was twelve today, and she didn't have a worry in the world. Pivoting toward the triplets and their seventh in just a few days would be easier and harder at the same time, for Maya and Lucas at least. The day itself, at least, would not be so complicated, a big part of it would be very easy. There would be ice cream, as there should always have been, between Lucas, the cub, the kit, and the bun.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners