April 16th 2023

Chapter 106
We Color the World

They might have considered leaving the children at the Babineaux house if there had been any way for them not to have figured out what was going on, but it was really only a matter of time, after Maya hung up with her brother-in-law, before they knew: Auntie Lizard was about to have her baby, their new cousin, and there was no way they were not going to the hospital with their parents. It would have been so much more complicated and time consuming for Maya and Lucas to talk them into staying back and having fun with the other junior turtles instead of spending who knew how long in a waiting room, and they really wanted to get going, so that was the end of it. The Friars were all clearing out and heading to join everyone at the hospital in the wait for Baby Landau.

With all the hassle that was needed in getting everyone into the minivan and the car, and the drive taking the Friars and Munroe-Friars to their destination, they arrived with only the Calaharts having preceded them. Seven-year-old Francesca was sitting with her nearly two-year-old brother in her lap, both of them with their eyes fixed on the screen up in the corner, while their father sat next to them, bent to work as he drew inside what they'd quickly discover to be a greeting card balanced on a small stack of magazines.

"Uncle Sam!" Marianne bolted for him as soon as she saw him and he lifted his head just as fast, grinning when he saw his niece.

"Hey!" he set his project aside even as his son wriggled speedily down from his perch, the better to run toward his aunt, his sister right behind him.

"Timmy-Tim-Tam!" Maya crouched to hug him, opening herself up to a similar embrace from her niece. "Hey, Frankie," she beamed, glad for the kiss she received on her cheek. "Where's your mom?"

"She'll be here soon," Sam answered for them. "The three of us were out together when Ben called, we were closer… Anyway, they're not here yet."

"Who, Eliza and Ben?" Lucas asked, just as surprised as his wife.

"Yeah," Sam sighed, trying not to sound like the delay was anything to worry about, but then this was his baby sister out there, about to have a baby, so he really couldn't help himself and neither could Maya. She had a feeling now that his drawing in the card had a lot more to do with not going into a weird headspace than anything else.

It didn't help that, one by one, the other clusters started to arrive, all of them preceding the expecting parents. Cara and Mateo arrived along with Felix and baby Manny, future big brothers the pair of them, with their mother looking like she might have been the one coming into the delivery room that day and not their aunt even though she still had a good three months and some to go. Then Emma arrived, a giant teddy bear in her arms even as Dakota followed her with a great, big, jolly balloon. When he arrived with a near identical stuffed toy, her big brother got into a playful argument with her about how it was really only logical that he should give her one of these, as she'd always remember her teddy bear from her Teddy Brother. It had Priya and Lily laughing, lending their unwavering support to his side of the 'argument.'

"They're not here yet?" Abigail asked, as she arrived with James, Maisie, Wyatt, and Finn. The soon to be dethroned youngest Hart-Lane grandchild had been left in the care of his grandparents when the call had come in. They'd gone and picked up his father on the way to the hospital, explaining their delay, but now, as they'd arrived, followed not a minute later by Dora Calahart, the ongoing absence of their 'stars' of the day became that much more concerning.

Thankfully, they only had time to exist in this state of mind for about three minutes more before they were met with the double relief that not only had Eliza and Ben arrived at the hospital: Their baby had already been born, even as the rest of them had been worrying in the waiting area.

They didn't understand this part at first. All they knew was that all of a sudden Ben came jogging to meet them, looking very frazzled but relieved. They were all so glad to see him, everyone talking over one another and asking questions that they didn't understand what he was telling them when he would say that 'she' was here, and 'she' was fine. They thought he was talking about Eliza, and admittedly he could have been, as those statements were true of her as well, but he wasn't talking about his wife; he was talking about their little daughter.

By the time they got to go and see them both, they had most of the story, which was essentially that from the moment they had gotten off the phone from telling people that they were headed to the hospital, everything that could go and inconvenience them on their journey, even as Eliza was coping with ongoing labor, came and did just that. It was enough so that, eventually, they found themselves being sped up to the hospital on the tail of a police escort, which only barely got them to the hospital in time. For that, Hannah Landau was born in the back of her parents' car.

The baby girl didn't seem all too troubled by her arrival into the world when they met her. She was awake, peaceful in her mother's arms. And her mother… Oh, her mother could not have been happier to be holding her. When her first visitors came along, her parents and all her siblings together, she looked up and saw them there and her eyes were a spark. Look what I did… they said. Abigail was the first at her bedside, leaning to kiss the top of her head and carefully give her a one-arm hug before peering down at her new granddaughter.

"We were so worried about you for a while there," James told Eliza as he came to stand with his wife, smiling down at the new mother and daughter.

"I know, I'm so sorry, we…" Eliza shook her head.

"No, you have nothing to apologize for, alright?" Abigail assured her. "All that matters is that you're all right here and you're doing good."

"We really are," Eliza promised, looking to her baby, then to her husband, her smile following him as he came around and sat by her side. She passed him their daughter and it was etched in all of him that if this wasn't the first time he held her, it could only be the second. "You know, this is what I get for not being able to make up my mind about who I wanted to be in here with us when she came," she declared, leaving them all to give a much needed chuckle.

"Okay, but who gets to hold her first?" Sam teased, and if this made his tired sister and brother-in-law grin, the way Maya, Teddy, Sam, Cara, Emma, Wyatt, and Maisie all raised their hands at the same time got them laughing even more.

In the end, that honor went to the one who would gain the distinction of being the baby girl's favorite aunt, the one who'd been her mother's best friend before she'd ever been her sister, her college 'neighbor/roommate,' and her business partner. Emma held Hannah Landau, and she could not have cared very much in that moment about who did or didn't get to gift her with a giant teddy bear. She was deeply reluctant to relinquish her so she could be passed to any one of her many eager aunts and uncles, or her equally eager grandparents, but in time she did, and so the newborn was passed along, each new holder feeling just as unwilling as the last to let her go. They knew she would only support all of this for so long, and there were even more family members beyond the room, just waiting for their chance to so much as see her.

"Can we see the baby now?" Lucy asked her mother when Maya came along to find her and the others in the waiting room. While the first group had been in Eliza's room, the rest of them had been doing their best to wait as patiently as possible. As would be confirmed later but already expected, it had been harder with some of them, especially the children. How could they help it? They'd all been brought here because their new cousin was arriving, and now she had, and they hadn't been able to see her. Instead, they'd had to wait in a room that gave them very little to do except turn to their parents and whatever ideas they had to occupy them. It had been a middling success, although near the end, they had been having some success thanks to their taking a page out of Sam's tactics and getting their hands on some cards and some colored markers. They now had a whole set of pieces to present to the new baby and her parents.

"Yeah, of course, you can," Maya told her, smiling that merry smile she got whenever one of her nieces and nephews were born. It always amused Lucas to see it on her, about as much as it amused her to see him seeing her.

As they would escort their girls over to the room, they'd walk along, his arm around her waist and hers around his, watching them talk excitedly together, some of them skipping and skidding along, looking back in hope that everyone else would be going as fast as them so they could get there already. No matter just how excited they all were – and were they ever – their whole attitude changed as they finally came up to the door because they all knew, right down to the youngest among them, that they needed to be quiet around the new baby. The way they all looked at each other, they might have been walking around with a finger pressed to their lips. Hush now.

If it was just so incredible for Maya to look at her little sister, sitting there with her first child in her arms, to her husband and daughters it was… also incredible, though only Lucas of all of them could be thinking this for reasons that approached her own, as he would have known her about as long as she'd done. For their daughters, especially the younger ones, it was more of a thrill of wonderment. Oh, they so loved their Aunt Lizard.

She'd been part of their lives for as long as they could remember, and for most of them these memories had her right there in their house, a part of their day to day, and even though she'd been gone now for over a year, they had not forgotten what she'd meant to them, in the days when she'd lived upstairs. As they met their baby cousin, and they presented her with their artwork, they seemed most eager to let her know how much her mother meant to them, her and her father, too. Some of them were much too young to remember Ben as their special Christmas visitor, or to even understand the nature of his visits. All they could tell the baby was how much they loved her parents and essentially how much she'd love them, too. Oh, they couldn't wait to get to play with her.

"So many babies lately," Maya hummed, later on, as she stood by Lucas, presently holding Hannah for the first time. Lucas smiled, thinking of Finneas, and Manny… and Manny's upcoming little brother or sister… and now Hannah here… There sure are… Without saying it, they had to wonder, if they would ever again have one of their own to present to their family.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners