A/N: [November 9th 2024]

November 9th 2023

Chapter 313
We Wake Into the Broken

The day had been long, and the news on the end of it had been bittersweet already, but they had not foreseen sleep to be so hard to come by. And then they'd made that last call, they'd spoken to Farkle, and they had been told about the situation between him and Isadora… Both Maya and Lucas had gone up to bed feeling sort of stunned out of speech. They'd gotten ready, they'd climbed in under the covers and they'd settled in as they had done for years upon years now, but neither of them knew what to say, and so they remained silent save for a mumbled wish for a good night to one another. That wish clearly went unheeded by the universe, because neither one of them could say that they had gotten much more than a few blocks of sleep here and there over the hours that followed.

Whether they could feel that the other was awake like them, or that they had managed to get to sleep, they didn't say or do anything except try to doze off again, affording the other the chance to do the same. But they got closer and closer to morning, and the outcome remained the same. There was no getting away from it, from the thought of what was happening, miles and miles away, with their friends and their family. It didn't even feel real, it couldn't be. This was Farkle and Isadora, the first of them to get married, to have kids… Morning was rising now, and they were exhausted, but they had each other. This time, when she knew that he was awake, Maya turned around to face her husband.

"Hey…" he spoke quietly as he reached to cup her cheek in his hand. Maya leaned into his touch at once. "Got as much sleep as I did, huh?" he asked, and she sighed. Lucas pressed one gentle kiss at her forehead, and another. This was hitting her hard, and how could it not? It was doing the same to him. They'd had people in their lives splitting up, friends even, but this one felt too close to home.

"Were we bad friends?" Maya asked as they lay looking at one another.

"What?" Lucas blinked.

"Maybe if we saw each other more… I mean, sure, we can't help it that it's a long drive from here to Dallas, and with the kids, it's not always easy, but… We could have been there for them, we could have known…"

"I'm not sure it could have done anything one way or the other. The way Farkle said it… This isn't on you, or any one of us."

"I know… I guess I know, but… I just…" she breathed like she was resisting the urge to cry, which could have been born out of exhaustion as much as this thing that they were having to process.

It felt frightening, to some degree. It was as though all of a sudden they were having to deal with the fact that a story as loving and beautiful as they had always seen it could come to an end the way that their friends' was. And if it happened to them, then… then what was to say it wouldn't happen to anyone else they loved. What if it happened… to them? That couldn't be, they felt very strongly about that… and yet… and yet… Now they had to go on with their days as though this hadn't happened, which would be made that much harder now by the exhaustion.

Their own sadness over the news felt like nothing the moment they started to think about the children. There at the top, they had to think about Ada and Bertie most of all, though calling them children no longer felt accurate at this point, not when Ada Marie Minkus had just turned fifteen years old all of three weeks ago and would be heading into high school in the fall, and Albert 'Bertie' Minkus would be starting middle school.

There was only so much they could do for the two of them, and they really wished that this wasn't so, but out here, they had their children to see to, as their other friends would do once they found out about Farkle and Isadora, too. Some of them had friends whose parents were no longer together, they knew, but others didn't, but either way, they were family to them, and this would be… strange… upsetting… Whatever would come of this, they'd likely have so many questions, and the answers might not be as easy to come by as they would have hoped for them to be.

This wouldn't be an issue yet, not for them. Before they'd hung up the night before. Farkle and Isadora had not told their children yet, so he had asked his friends to keep things quiet until they'd had a chance to sit them down. They had accepted, understandably so, but now they would have to go out there, after a sleepless night that weighed on them with this secret, and they had no idea how they would come off to their girls. When Maya went and scooped up Ezra from his crib, wide awake and continuing his recent attempts to get himself out of there, their fairy boy looked at her with just a bit of a concerned brow to him. He reached his small hands to touch her face, and it made her smile.

"You're picking up your Daddy's mannerisms, huh?" she asked him and he squealed. "We'll make a junior Huckleberry out of you yet. Come here," she kissed his cheek, carrying him to the bed. He waved his legs about when he saw his father, so Maya set him down and allowed him to crawl his way over to Lucas, who picked him up and held him close.

"Morning, Pan."

There was nothing like their kids to raise their spirits, and all of them coming along in the morning, half awake and yearning for their parents and breakfast was enough to make the smiles a little easier and completely honest. Their tired eyes didn't go unnoticed, but they were simply ascribed to everything that had happened back at the ranch. As they all sat together for breakfast, the girls revealed how they had still been thinking about the new horse, and her mom…

They had not forgotten about their desire to go and see the foal, and neither had their parents. They would head out shortly after breakfast, once everyone was ready. Lucas had already gotten some updates from Sylvie, who reported that their new young friend had gotten through the night as well as one would hope. She would stay out there until he came along, after having spent the night alternating between looking in on the stables and resting up over at the bed and breakfast, swapping places with her husband each time. To hear it out of her, she'd gotten a start at knowing the foal, and in those short hours, she'd come to think of her as Dove, sometimes Dovey. When they were told this, the girls were even more eager to meet her.

She was just as sweet as promised, and the girls showered her with all the love they could give. They had been around horses, young ones and older ones, too, long enough to know how to behave themselves around them. Dovey looked perfectly at ease around them all. Maya and Lucas both watched them together, took pictures… One of their favorite moments had to be seeing Ezra and the horse, the curiosity on the boy's face, in the horse's movements…

The scene was innocent, and lovely, and still their thoughts wandered out to Dallas, to their friends… They thought of them coming together, years ago, thought of that very surprising morning when they'd been informed that the two of them were going to get married, and then that they would be parents… They had been so far away from them once, when they'd still been in New York, but then they'd come to Dallas and, sure, that was still kind of far for a casual visit, but not nearly as far as it had been before. They had been able to see each other most weeks, at dinners, lunches, and because they were who they'd always been at sleepovers, too. They had all become parents, they had watched their children grow together, everything was wonderful, and when they'd all needed each other, they'd had each other. They were going to need each other now, Farkle and Isadora would need them, as would Ada and Bertie… and they would be there, all of them.

"I love her," Aubrey beamed, looking at Dovey, and Dovey looked at her as though she was thinking 'I like you, too, human.'

"I think she's starting to feel the same way," Lucas promised, and his youngest daughter's happiness was warm reassurance all on its own.

They needed that reassurance, him and Maya both. Much as they tried not to let it, the nagging feeling kept coming at them, this impossible responsibility like they could have prevented all this, like they could have kept their friends from growing apart from one another. Did they know deep down that this wasn't realistic, that it was as Lucas had said before and it would have happened no matter what? Somewhere in their hearts, they did know it, yes. But they could also imagine what it would be like for Ada and Bertie, and maybe it was their pain more than anyone else's they were hoping to prevent.

When would they do it? When would they tell them? And what would happen when they did? Who was going to move out? Where would they go? Would they both stay in Dallas? They had to, didn't they? For Ada and Bertie? But then what if they didn't? Where would they go? Where would the kids go?

"Dad? Are you okay?"

Lucas looked over and there was Marianne, standing right by his side, staring up at him with that mini Maya look of hers. He put his arms around her, and she hugged him back.

"You look tired," she told him.

"I am," he admitted. "It was a… strange night," he told her.

"Dovey looks like she's doing great, yeah?"

"Absolutely. And I'm really glad that she has all of you to look after her."

"Can we stay a while?"

"We can stay as long as you want to."

He meant it very much. As they'd been watching the kids and Dovey, Maya had mentioned how she'd just remembered that her birthday was just a few days away now. She'd remembered it, and she had been thinking about how bad news had revolved around those days in the past, too, enough to make her start to dread its coming just a bit. He didn't want her to be thinking that way, but there was very little he could do about it in the moment except to direct the universe to grant his wife some more happiness. She could get so much of it right here, watching the children, so as far as he was concerned, they would stay all day long.

This would be a good birthday for her, he would do his very best to make it happen for her. There may have been a lot of things that he couldn't control, and maybe this would be another one of those in the end, but he wasn't giving up. This day would pass, and a new one was ahead of them, and another one after that, and another one after that… This took him back to when Marianne had been rehearsing for her role in Annie, and it made him laugh. When Maya asked why he was laughing, he told her, and she laughed, too. See? We're making progress already.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners