A/N: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available!

April 22nd 2023

Chapter 112
We Color In Daylight

It was perfectly reasonable for Shawn and Katy to get a call from their eldest daughter that night, telling them that their son and daughter – the only two still at home – would be spending the night at her house along with their other older sisters. They had their school things and a change of clothes with them, and one of them was going to the same school with her the next morning, while the other could be dropped off at her own school on the way. They didn't have to be given the circumstances of this spontaneous sleepover, and if Haley didn't want to give them, then she didn't have to. She and MJ would go back the next afternoon and then it would be up to them to figure out what they would or wouldn't tell their parents.

Maya wasn't in the habit of telling lies like this. She didn't like doing it, especially to her own parents, with her siblings. Maybe it was the age difference and the fact that she herself was a parent, many times over. It always came back to this, didn't it? This gap between her and her brothers and sisters. It wouldn't stop her from doing what she believed was right by them, not for a second. And after what had happened outside with Madelyn Carter, Haley was so upset that, when she eventually asked her sisters if she could stay with them for the night, Maya didn't respond otherwise after Nellie and Gracie immediately accepted and folded themselves in to embrace their baby sister. After that, MJ didn't even have to say a single thing. If Haley was staying here, he wasn't going anywhere.

They tried to get her talking, to find out what had happened to cause the argument in the first place, but she didn't want to talk about it, and she looked so deeply upset and shaken that they didn't try much harder to convince her. The twins took her upstairs, helped her to get changed out of her costume and lent her some of their PJs. After that, she chose to stay upstairs in their room, so they let her be and went back out with MJ.

Maya found it almost too hard to follow them, caught somewhere between her sisterly instincts and her maternal ones. When she finally made herself go to head out and see how things were going outside, she almost bumped right into Marianne.

"Hey…" Maya stopped her and guided her on to the porch before closing the door. "Are you okay?"

"I want to see Haley," Marianne told her.

"She wants to be alone right now," Maya explained as she sought some way to reassure her daughter. "And you should be out there right now. Pretty soon you'll need to go and get changed for bed, remember?" This might have sent her dashing right back out to play and enjoy the rest of her birthday, but if there was one thing to make even that become insignificant, it would be a family member in distress, and just now Haley's situation felt more important than anything else. "You can go up to the door and knock. If you ask her if you can come in and she says no, you have to come back down, okay? No pushing it."

"I won't," Marianne promised before heading inside. Maya watched her go. She stayed in the doorway and listened as her steps ascended, up one floor, up one more, and turned quiet. A few seconds later, she heard a distant knock. She strained her ears further, waited… It was faint, but she knew she heard a door open, then close again after a moment. She felt… relieved.

"Thanks, pumpkin," she breathed before heading out again.

The rest of the evening couldn't help but feel different from how it had started. According to Lucas, the incident was put aside, yes, and people continued to play, but there was detachment to it. Almost everyone who wasn't staying because of the costume contest was gone by the time they announced the year's winners. As for those who usually spent part of the evening at the house afterward, even that didn't last as long as anything like a party. They mostly sat around and talked about this and that, avoiding the subject that had to be on their minds whether they meant it to or not.

"So… This was a weird one, huh?" Lucas turned to Maya when they found themselves alone again, their last guests gone, Wyatt gone up to check on Finn… MJ was changing out of his costume, and the twins were outside, saying goodnight to their boyfriends.

"What else would it be with us, right?" she sighed. They barely had to say a thing, just walked to one another at the same time and met in a hug. After a beat, he heard her chuckle to herself before starting to sway along, leading him to do the same. He happily obliged. "One quick dance and then we need to go see what's going on up there."

"Deal."

If they were worried that they'd have to get Marianne down from the second floor, they didn't have to be. They found her in the bathroom with her uncle. MJ was getting the makeup off of her, helping to transform her back into a nine-year-old human girl instead of a creature from the depths of some sinister realm. They had no doubt that, by the time he graduated high school and started looking to colleges – if he went, and if that school was in Austin – he would be campaigning to stay here like the others before him, and with the way his nieces loved him, who would they be to refuse him? Just where he'd land, when Wyatt would still be with them for another year by that point, who was to say, but they would figure it out when they got there.

"Hey…" Maya greeted them, and they both looked up, like thieves caught in the act. "Everything alright up there?"

"Haley's sleeping, in Gracie's bed," Marianne reported. They asked her whether she'd said much, but Marianne shrugged. "She didn't want to talk, but I think me being there helped a little. I left when she was asleep."

"You're one good pumpkin, Pumpkin," MJ declared. "Now, hold still, I have to do your hair, yeah?"

When all that was left was to get changed, Marianne went to her room and MJ shut the bathroom door, putting on the borrowed PJs – also the twins', because he didn't care – and headed up to the guest room. By the time Maya and Lucas were de-costumed, too, they were met at their bed by the birthday girl.

"Way past your bedtime, isn't it?" Lucas 'accused,' and she responded by presenting him with a picture. "Let me see… That might be too long of a story for tonight. You've got school in the morning," he reminded her when she looked ready to protest. "But I can tell it to you in the morning." Marianne considered her options and finally relented, taking goodnight kisses from her parents before retreating to her green room.

"You know, sometimes I look at that kid and think, 'if I hadn't been right there when she came out of me, I might not be sure she was real,'" Maya whispered once she was gone. Lucas nodded his understanding of this sentiment.

It had been a long and complicated evening, on the end of a long and wonderful day, but as happy as they would be to go and head to bed, they had not forgotten about what this day's end would bring. If anything, going to sleep together and thinking of their anniversary, the one they marked as the beginning of their relationship, was the best way to drift off.

"I think I woke up again at midnight," Lucas mumbled when he woke up to sunlight streaming into the room, lighting up his wife's hair like gold.

"You did," Maya mumbled back. "We both did."

"Did we…"

"Vaguely remember we wanted to, but I think we fell asleep again before we could…" She paused, and he did, too, sensing the same thing she did. "You there, Hucklebucket?"

"Uh huh," Marianne replied, and at least she sounded more amused than traumatized, so if she'd understood what they were talking about… "Can we do the story now?" As tempting as it could be to tell her no, seeing as they were barely awake, he had promised her.

"Alright, race you to the kitchen," Lucas motioned to the door. Marianne didn't move, just presented him with a raised eyebrow that made Maya snort. "Didn't buy that one. Smart."

"Thanks," Marianne smiled. "Now, come on," she walked out, and Lucas turned to Maya.

"And you need to remember her being born to be sure?" he asked her.

"Dad!" Marianne's voice sailed up from halfway down the stairs.

"I'm going to remember this moment from now on," Maya gestured between the hall and Lucas. He hummed, kissed the side of her head, and moved to rise before their daughter came to pull him by the arm.

He met her in the kitchen, where she had knowingly gotten the coffee started for him. Now, she was sitting at the kitchen table, picture sat before her. He looked at the cup she'd set out for him, the one they'd gifted him last fathers' day, painted with strips in the colors of all their birth stones, their seven thumb prints pressed on in white, like the petals of a flower, around the yellow thumb print that was Maya's. Once he had his cup filled, he came and joined her. He could hear everyone upstairs. Maya would have started getting the other girls out of bed even as she'd be wanting to check on Haley up in the twins' room.

"Alright," he motioned for Marianne to give him the picture, and she did. The image was one of his mother, holding a small dog and looking so very happy, possibly crying or about to cry. "You know who this is, yeah?" he asked, showing her the dog. Of course, she did. She'd known him well in his last years. That was Duke, as he'd first been, as he'd come into the family.

He told her the story, about how their previous dog, Dash, had become ill, and how she'd died, how upset his mother had been about it. Oh, she'd so loved their Dash, and then she'd been gone, and while that could have been the end of his parents and dogs for a while, his gut had told him that the loss could only be dealt with by finding an outlet for that love they had in them. It had led him to the shelter, and there he had found little Duke. He had gotten him for his parents, gifted him to them as an early Christmas present. And it really had been the right call. It had not been about replacing Dash but rather about honoring her memory and allowing that love they had in them to go to another dog who needed a family like them.

"How come they didn't get another dog after Duke then?" Marianne wondered.

"I guess they never got around to it," Lucas sighed, reflecting on the question.

"Maybe… maybe Pappy Tom needs one now," Marianne went on, in a voice as innocent as it was open. She'd been holding on to this picture, he was almost sure, waiting for the right moment. She knew what it was like to lose a dog very suddenly, had lost two of them when Crowley and Squeak had disappeared on them, but it was about more than that to her.

It was about the joy that she saw in that picture of her late grandmother. To her, it was like a signal, a means to bring some of that same joy, so needed as it was, in her grandfather. Thomas had accompanied them to the shelter once, on an outing with the afterschool program, and he'd come away emptyhanded, but there'd still been that feeling like it had done him a lot of good.

"Maybe, if there was a dog that felt right, or just…"

"There is," Marianne sat up. "At the retreat," she pointed out, and he blinked for a moment, thinking… Oh… Marianne smiled when she caught that understanding in him. "You'll try, right, Dad?"

"I will," he assured her.

Haley looked like she'd slept poorly, and she was not looking forward to going to school, or facing her classmates, Madelyn in particular. But the only way she'd get out of that would be by skipping – which she'd never do – or telling her parents what was going on. She didn't want that, so the only remaining option was school. Nellie and Gracie would drop her off as they and Wyatt headed off to their morning classes. They'd drop off MJ at the high school, too, even if it might have been easier for him to catch a ride with his big sister. He needed to see his little sister off for the day, and no one would argue with that.

When Maya found out about Marianne's story and its outcome, she looked as proud of how she'd pulled that one off as she was intrigued at the proposed match.

"You think so?" she asked Lucas.

"I feel good about it, yeah," he nodded. "I was thinking… How would you feel about coming out to the retreat during your afternoon break and coming along when I bring her over?"

"I'd feel… I'd feel like it would be a great way to celebrate twenty-one years with you," she smiled. That settled it.

The dog was a black lab, with the sweetest eyes and most loving demeanor. She'd come by this demeanor, or maybe been returned to it, after a couple of weeks in Bishop's care. She had nowhere to go, needed a good home… When Lucas proposed his father's home, his old friend and classmate smiled. Yes, he felt it, too. There could be no better match. Now they just had to see how it would go when Thomas Friar met Daisy.

They brought her out to the house and found him out front, tending to the flowers that had been Melinda's favorites. Nellie and Gracie had become habitual visitors, helping in their care, and Thomas had learned a great deal from them.

As soon as they opened up the door for her, Daisy hopped out and hurried along. They were worried for a moment that she would run right into the flowers and bring about their unfortunate demise, but instead she stopped behind the crouched man and announced herself with a small yelp that felt very much like 'hello, friend.' Thomas was caught up in his activities enough that he was startled, but then he turned, and he saw the dog, and he smiled, curious but very much welcoming. He reached out and she stepped up, let him pet her, just as he saw beyond her and spotted his son and daughter-in-law, and he understood. This precious pup was his to keep and to care for if he would have her… and he really, really would. She was so aptly named, as he would come to learn, just as she would learn that she would eternally be home by his side.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners