A/N: Hey guys, sorry for falling behind. Had some issues with time and my computer and it took a while to get back on top of things because of my job. Won't get all the back chapters caught up in one go, because it'd be a lot, but I'll get them up bit by bit until we're back on track!

A/N2: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available!

June 3rd 2023

Chapter 154
We Have Four Candles Burning Bright

The closer they were getting to the premiere of 'Annie Annie,' as the girls had started to call it, the more the demands on Marianne's time increased at the theater. Lucas had made it his task to get her where she needed to be at all times, dubbing himself her personal chauffeur, which made her laugh and made Maya hide sticky note sketches of him in 'proper chauffeur attire' for him to find.

On this one day, where he'd dropped her off and eventually gone to pick her up, he'd found her in a grand huddle of all the young actresses playing the other orphans, surrounding both Siobhan and the musical's director and talking excitedly. He wasn't sure what it was about until Marianne spotted him, cranked up the volume on her giddiness to call out to him, and bolted over to get to him so she could grab hold of his arms.

"Dad, guess what, they said yes!" she told him.

"They did, huh?" he asked, grinning automatically, and she nodded. He leaned in closer and she imitated him. "About what?" he asked, and she realized she might have left out a few details.

"My gift, for Mack's birthday. You don't know what it is yet, I know, and... I guess I have to tell you, don't I?"

"Might help," he agreed. As though the birthday girl was anywhere within earshot - she wasn't, she was at school, like she would have been if not for the musical - she pulled for him to be close enough, to whisper at his ear. When she had gotten it all out, she stood back and stared proudly up at him, only mildly wondering...

"It's okay, right? We can do that?"

"Are you kidding? We have to. She'll love it," Lucas whispered back, and Marianne was giddy again.

"Good, because I need your help." He motioned to himself, a clear expression of 'and you have it.'

Mackenzie Friar would have no idea of the... shenanigans... her older sister and others were up to, in the days leading up to her fourth birthday. Technically, this gift was as much for her as it would be for Aubrey, even though her third birthday was not for another month. Neither of them knew, or the triplets, or even most of their family at large, only those few who were directly involved. And so, on the day before her birthday, which was thankfully a Saturday, everyone gathered at the house for what would be Mackenzie's party. They had plans for another, smaller party on the next day, the actual day.

Mackenzie was already so deeply excited about this day, and she didn't even know about what her big sister had cooked up for her and their baby sister. None of the uninformed understood what was about to happen, although the more mature of them could easily put enough pieces together to know a performance was about to take place. The beauty of it was that, though no visual evidence would be released if it got out, it would only ever exist like some kind of urban legend, the tale of one very private performance of the Silvan Hughes Theater's production of 'Annie Annie,' top to bottom, featuring the whole of its child cast, alternates and all, and some very interesting substitutions in the adults.

Would Lucas Friar ever call himself a performer? Not in the slightest. Yes, he got by very well as a dancer from his classes back in high school, though he was rusty even before his attack, and he could sing without feeling like he was awful, but then his usual audience was either his loving wife or any of a number of small daughters. Would that stop him from donning a bald cap and calling himself Daddy Warbucks? Not for a second. Standing by his side in his taking in of young Annie, the real musical talent in the couple and one who had secretly conspired to play Miss Hannigan, would be Maya as Miss Farrell.

Standing in their way, they would reunite a couple of the school musical all-stars, with Taylor and Lea taking great and hilarious pleasure in playing Rooster and Lily. But the biggest pull yet, their great legend and the only reason Maya bowed out so gracefully, was the very surprise appearance of Ree Forster, their great Auntie Ree, squaring up against the nine-year-old who bore her given name next to her own, as the woman in charge of all those 'Little Girls.'

It was everything they could have dreamt of and more. The kids had a blast, the adults did so as well, and most importantly on this occasion, both Mackenzie and Aubrey were in complete awe of their sister's gift, as they soon knew that it had been her doing. It was the kind of memory that would stay with them all their lives, right down to not-yet-three-year-old Aubrey.

It was hard, as the following morning rolled around, for Maya and Lucas not to be collectively aware and just a bit caught in their feelings. They woke up with their growing birthday girl between them, having to contend with the knowledge that it had been a whole four years since she'd been pulled into the world, tiny and crying, to fit snug in their arms. Adding to it how they were still attempting to create another tiny and crying human together, with no success achieved...

"Kind of hard to look at her now and think how we used to call her Tiny," Lucas whispered as they both looked at her, curled up and clinging to his arm but also wiggling about from time to time like she was having a very lively dream.

"It's a good thing we could call her that, seeing as she was inside me," Maya pointed out, brushing gently at the girl's blond hair, which was the longest of their six at home, after Marianne's rogue cut.

"The original Tiny," Lucas smirked, and Maya signed her response, which made him laugh, and whether or not it was the thing that did it, Mackenzie opened her eyes. "Hey, Macaw," Lucas smiled at once before bending to kiss her forehead. She shimmied at once to slip under his arm and be held by him, which he did with no further prompt required. "Happy birthday," he told her. She was just barely awake, enough that it took a few seconds for her to process the message and look at him again.

"It's on today?" she asked.

"I think so. Maybe we should ask your mom, yeah?" he suggested, and Maya might have thanked him for redirecting their daughter's attention if she hadn't been fully enamored at the sight of them, father and daughter cuddled up together on this morning. But then Lucas assisted Mackenzie in turning herself over to face the other way without leaving him, which made her giggle, and this was the face Maya was gifted with, made even brighter for seeing her, and so she scooted nearer, the better to kiss that little face and be kissed by her in return.

"Mommy, it's my birthday!" Mackenzie squeaked before briefly shrinking in as though she was still running on the possibility that they could have been mistaken.

"It sure is," Maya reassured her, and the grin was back. "Four now, huh?" Maya asked, and her girl nodded, looking to her father's hand where it sat around her, in view and reached to poke at his fingers in turn, not counting but still making a small sound at each one she touched, like she might have been saying 'one, two, three, four!' "Good job," Maya laughed. "Did you sleep okay?" she asked. Mackenzie nodded. "Did you have any good dreams?" Another nod.

"What did you dream about?" Lucas asked. Mackenzie looked back up to him.

"I dream that… I'm a bird, like Micro, and I'm little, like Micro. But I'm a lot of colors, and I fly and fly and fly all over, all over, in trees, and in the park, and in houses, too."

"Wow!" Maya gasped appreciatively, already picturing baby bird Mackenzie and how she would draw her. "All by yourself or with Micro?"

"With everyone," Mackenzie affirmed, now pulling for her mother's arm, the better to spy the birds inked into her skin there. Now that made a whole lot more sense. They could picture her lying there, staring at either one of her parents' 'bird arm,' and having them all be the last thing she saw as she drifted away. Maybe the bird of her dreams was not like the one that represented her on their arms, but it was the one she had conjured up for herself, and as far as they could picture it, they would both say that it was a great representation of their birthday girl.

This bit of intimacy with her was never going to last, not with sisters, and aunts, and an uncle, all looking to have their turn at saying hello, and so Mackenzie went and had her time with them while her parents got started on things for her birthday breakfast. Guests would be later, that was what they had decided, but it was reasonable to suspect some of them might find a way to work around that restriction, so they had best get started. Maya had also gone and collected her young nephew, carrying in the ten-month-old only so far as it brought him down the stairs, after which she assisted him in moving forward on his feet. The way he'd smile and squeal, they would joke how they'd never seen anyone so excited about walking as Finneas Hart-Lane was. They were pretty excited for him, too. He was still too little to lend any significant sort of assistance in the kitchen, probably delayed them a bit instead, but no one complained. Blame it on their unresolved baby fever but were very happy with their special guest.

"Oh, who is that? Huh? Who's that?" Maya cooed as she picked up the small boy and carried him from the kitchen when the doorbell rang. When they neared, she found that these were the guests, few as they were, that had been invited to breakfast, and this solely on Mackenzie's request. She wanted her friend there, so they could have 'rainbow pancakes' together. That was what they called them, even if there were only really three colors, brought by the bits of strawberry, banana, and blueberries tossed into the batter. And with Alia Song came her father and mother.

"Hi!" the small girl greeted Maya with enough anxious excitement that she felt she had to know what she was after.

"Pancakes aren't ready, but Mackenzie's upstairs, I'm sure you'll find them if you follow the noise," she directed her, and off she went. "Good morning," Maya turned a smile to the vice-principal and his wife, Rachel.

"Thank you for having us," Alistair tipped his head to her, and though she knew it, Maya was momentarily taken with the awareness that this was the first time he visited her house. She didn't know why it caught her up this way, or at least she had some thoughts, for sure, thoughts that fell under the category of 'the looming specter of Sandra Davenport.' Anytime they'd meet socially, even though they were well within their rights, especially as they had their daughters to consider, it still felt like, the second they turned around, there she would be. But there would be none of that, not here, not today. Today was all about a funny macaroni, rainbow pancakes, and good times.

Breakfast was a highlight on any day, but special occasions, in their house, felt that much better when they met with their favorite meal of the day. When it was over, the group moved outside, where they were soon sure to be joined by more and more guests. Those who came and had a tie to the high school had a series of very true to them responses, which overall seemed to come down to how they didn't know how to behave with the vice-principal there, possibly not the one they wanted to hear them air frustrations regarding the principal. They relaxed eventually. They might not have brought her up at any point, but they were left with the very accurate impression that Alistair Song would be just as happy to see Sandra Davenport ousted as they would.

And at the end of the day, what mattered more than the principal, today above all else, was Mackenzie Abigail Friar. She was all over the place that day, bursting with even more energy than usual, which was saying something. Maybe their favorite memory of the day, though they couldn't say that it would be one of Mackenzie's, was when Ree showed up. They'd been lucky to get her to participate in their private show, lucky in that she was both stateside at the moment and available, but now she would soon be flying back to Europe, and there was no way she wasn't going to stop by the little one's party. What some of them might have counted on was that, after her turn as Miss Hannigan the previous day, Mackenzie would be briefly distracted by the memory. It wasn't like she thought that her dear Auntie Ree was after her big sister in any way, but she did watch her with such a guarded look that Ree had to resist playing up the role again; it would only have made things worse.

"We got a lot of birthdays coming up soon, don't we?" Lucas told Aubrey, near the end of the night, before they started to think about getting the children off to bed. She was sitting in his lap, taking in the scene all around them, but she nodded in response, nonetheless. "And yours is coming up very soon," he gave her a little squeeze, which made her laugh.

"And you, Daddy!"

"That's right, mine's coming up not long after that…"

"And Nicky!"

"And him, too, that's it. Before you know it, Finneas will be one year old," Lucas held up one finger, and Aubrey seemed to like the sound of that. "Bet that'll be something, won't it? Then there'll be all the August girls, and you know what else?"

"Ella's having a baby," Aubrey nodded, recalling, as she looked around and then pointed to where her eldest sister sat, holding the sleeping birthday girl. It all seemed like the weeks were flying by with her, but there were still several of them left to go. "I like birthdays," Aubrey declared in a chirpy tone. Lucas laughed, hugged her some more.

"Yeah, they're pretty great. Do you know what you want to have for yours?" Aubrey looked up at him, and her eyes said the thing that was on her mind. "Yes, there'll be pancakes, I promise. With all the fruit you want."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners