April 28th 2023

Chapter 118
We Become Troubled

He would do everything he could, everything that was being asked of him in his recovery, in order to leave the hospital before the end of the month. Whatever he had to do, he needed to be home before the night of November 30th so that, when December 1st came around and his daughters expected to have been visited by the Christmas fairies, he would be there.

He didn't expect to be helping in any of the decorating beyond what light work he was able to reasonably do, but he needed to be there, if for the sole reason that it would make the day good for his daughters. He thought of what it would be like if December 1st happened and he wasn't there, whether they still decorated that night or waited for his return, and all it came down to was that some of the magic would be lost for them, and the last few weeks had already been so much for them to deal with. He wanted them to have their magic, every last spark of it.

And in many ways, he was achieving this. He looked a lot better than he'd done when he'd first been brought in, that was for sure, and while his physical recovery would not be completed before he went home by far, he was doing the work, and he was showing improvement. And if ever... whenever... he struggled, he would look to his forearm, to his birds. Maya, their daughters... He was doing this, and they were all the motivation he needed.

And yet... All the motivation in the world could only combat so far before it ran into obstacles. His biggest one, aside from the physical trauma that he had sustained, was the mental one. He was not proud of the way he continued to struggle with simply acknowledging it, especially when everyone he knew, everyone who came to see him, was clearly aware of it. Whenever Riley would come and visit, she'd have this look about her like she didn't want him to think that she was examining him, interrogating him, like she was suddenly his therapist rather than one of his oldest friends. For his part, he'd know, after she'd leave, that he had probably spent most of her visit feeling apprehensive about any look, comment, or question, and he felt bad about that, too.

The only ones he couldn't edit himself for... as much... were exactly those he'd expected. Maya... Ella... Pappy Joe... and his father. They would see right through him, always, no matter what he did, but most of the time they would leave it alone, wouldn't call him on it. He could see that they wanted to, though, and they did, sometimes.

Pappy Joe would always be the most direct about it, and it would leave Lucas in a place where he felt compelled to answer him honestly... but he'd skirt around the subject anyway. He'd say he was tired, or in pain, and his grandfather would not force him to talk, but he would go on talking himself, leaving his grandson with no choice but to listen. He did listen, couldn't help it, and he only wished that he was able to take the words in and use them.

With Ella, always, she would share how it made her feel to see him like this, and he would share with her... as much as he ever could. He never wished to see his girls cry and he hated to think he could ever be responsible. So, he would let her in, if in no other way than by holding her hand.

He could count on his father being there at one time or another, every single day. Lucas wished it didn't have to be this way because he knew what this place represented to his father; he'd had to cope with the idea of being here for as long as he would be a long time ago, with knowing that he would be in this place where he'd seen his mother after she'd died. For his father, even if she hadn't actually died here but at the scene of the accident, Lucas knew that his father would have to make himself stop and take a breath whenever he entered the building. Marianne had seen him do it, and she'd been the one to tell him.

That dread was never going to keep Thomas Friar from visiting his ailing son though, so he'd be there. He'd have a book with him always, and Lucas had become used to waking up and finding him there, sitting at his bedside, concentrated on his reading but not so much that he didn't look up within seconds of his opening his eyes again. When it'd be just the two of them there, sooner or later, Lucas would start to think about his mother, and he knew his father would be thinking about her, too. They'd be left to feel the vastness of her absence as they'd think about how she would have dealt with what had happened to her son. She would have been right there, all along… His heart ached for knowing that she couldn't be. She might not have seen into what was going through his mind, might have preferred to focus on the eventual recovery. She could also have been right on top of it, making sure all along that he would find himself again. She's still with me. She's in my dreams. Sometimes they feel so real that I'm not sure if she's not actually in my head.

He didn't want to keep his thoughts from his father, but he struggled anyway. Part of him kept thinking how, if he could just be open and honest with him, maybe his father would find it in himself to talk about some of his own ongoing troubles, born of a different kind of trauma and of grief. But then he'd think about how, if he did not feel like talking, it would be unfair to try and coax his father into doing the same. He knew his father could see what was going on with him, probably for those very same reasons as his own, and what it would come down to would be that, even if neither of them spoke of their respective woes, just knowing that they'd be together, aware if silent… it would be something. It would be comforting.

And then Maya… Before he could even consider himself in this, he couldn't stop thinking about her and how she'd been dealing with the last few weeks. He was very good at reading her, too, maybe better than she expected sometimes, but he knew that there were limits. When she was keeping things in, under the surface, to keep him in the dark, it would usually be for something good, like birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays, and it would just be fun. But this was something else, and being aware that she was keeping things inside… She didn't want him to have to worry about her while he was in the hospital, and he understood that move; he was pretty good at it himself.

But all it left him with was this anguish at being out here, away from her, knowing she was having to cope on her own and feeling like he was supposed to be there, by her side, helping her through this. When she would leave, at the end of her visits, all he'd feel was the need to stop her going or at least, at least to go and run after her and embrace her, but he couldn't, and it would sit like an unreleased scream in his head. She'd look at him, and she would come up to his bed, cradle his head in her hands and press a kiss to his forehead. Her eyes would be pinned to his, and he'd stare into them as though there was still some trace of a detail that he hadn't already pressed eternally into his memory.

And on the other side, when she would arrive, when he would know that she was on her way and the anticipation was finally rewarded… and when she wouldn't come alone…

"Daddy, Daddy!" Mackenzie bolted ahead of the others.

"Hey!" Lucas grinned, and his joy was made bolder as he could see her climb her way up to him. She was getting very good at that. She would get up to sit on the bed with him and, upon making it up there, she would stop and almost give a sort of flourish, saying 'look what I did!' with her eyes and her smile. "Everyone ever tell you you're a funny little macaroni?" he grinned.

"All the time, Daddy!" Mackenzie nodded.

"Imagine that," Maya smiled as she caught up and arrived, carrying Aubrey. The two-year-old was immediately in need of being with her father, so Maya brought her to the other side of the bed and put her down.

"Hey, Lucky…" Lucas laughed, seeing how excited she was, her and Mackenzie both. "Where are your sisters, huh?" he decided to ask her, if only to see how she would respond.

"No!" Aubrey squeaked.

"Try that again?" Maya encouraged, biting back a laugh. She was looking at her with big 'I don't know what to do' eyes now. "Where are they?" Maya asked. Aubrey pointed out the door, looked at her father, and nodded.

"Oh, they're out there, huh?" Lucas asked. "That's good then."

"We're getting ready!" Kacey's voice reached him from out in the hall. Lucas looked to Maya, and she mouthed the words back to him. They're getting ready. Her knowing smirk made him that much more intrigued than he'd already been.

Mackenzie and Aubrey clearly knew their parts in this, as they settled in on either side of him. Within a minute, there were four blondes peeking into the room before hurrying in to stand in the open space across from the foot of his bed. When he expressed his curiosity toward what all this was, the girls turned to their mother, who made an 'oh…' like 'yes, this is my part.' She stepped up and produced her phone, on which was pulled up a picture. He hadn't seen it in several years, but the moment he saw it, he knew it well. It showed a much younger set of turtles, the originals. Himself, and Zay, and Dylan, and Asher. She gestured between the picture and the girls in such a way that he understood the message: the girls were taking up the guise of their father and his best friends. Later, he'd be curious to find out how much of a struggle it had been to convince the triplets of letting Marianne play him instead of any one of them.

For the moment, he was far more interested in seeing them perform their very short notice bit of a play, a live performance of a story based on that picture, as told to them by their mother on the way from school that afternoon. This had been Marianne's idea, naturally, as these picture stories had always been her thing. She'd wanted to give this to her father, flipping the usual way they did this together, and Lucas was very happy and grateful that she did.

"You filmed it, right?" Lucas asked after it was over, while Marianne had taken her sisters to find some snacks from the vending machines.

"Every last second," Maya promised with a nod. "Later, I'll show you the 'rehearsals' from the minivan."

"Looking forward to it already," he smiled.

For a few seconds, they said nothing. Her arrival had been so wrapped up in the girls' play that there'd never been time or space for either of them to think of anything else. But now… They'd talked earlier that day, and she knew that he'd had a bad night's sleep. She'd wanted to come and see him during her break but had been unable to, much to her regret.

"This is already pretty good on its own," he let her know, and she chuckled, coming up to brush at his hair, feel at his growing beard. He'd vowed to only shave it when he got home, which had introduced an occasional razor-themed humor between them. For now, for this, there was nothing better than the old classic.

"You would say that, but then that's why you're my Huckleberry."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners