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

July 1st 2023

Chapter 182
We Remind Our Melody

Sleepsters demanded planning, most of all because of how many people would be a part of any of those, at any given time. They all knew this, even the kids, and they could respect that... a lot of the time... But then there they'd been, at the Babineaux party, the turtles sitting around, laughing about a story that Dylan has just shared, when several of the kids dashed over. None of them needed to say a word before their parents knew that they were coming in with a request, but they all listened as though they'd had no idea they were about to be asked for something.

What they were asked for, with little more than a couple of hours of warning, hours where they would be here, or on their way home, was thus a sleepster. Possibly what they were really after was a sleepover, not so much the special brand of sleepover that Maya and her sisters had created before it had expanded into what it now was, but by now the term had more or less supplanted the original word in their minds.

As such, the projected guest list seemed to involve mostly children. All the junior turtles and all of their individual friends, and then their parents, or some of them at least, to 'supervise,' which had evidently been cooked up by the older kids, who'd see if as the best way to appease the grown-ups. It was... effective. Not everyone could actually go, with all of it being so short notice, and that caused a lot of moping and pouting and sulking, but it couldn't be helped. In the end, the sleepster WOULD happen, out at the Friar house, with the six girls there, most of their young friends, the Orlandos, the Babineaux, and a few of their friends. They had nearly thirty children come along, with Zay, Nadine, Dylan, and Riley joining Maya and Lucas to watch over them. The best surprise, as they had initially bowed out of attending, was when Ella and Taylor arrived with their girls to join the others.

As much as they had all had a blast - those of them in attendance - at the Babineaux house, they kept on going out at the Friars' as though they had all the energy in the world. They could think of so many games to play, which they did, while some of the parents saw to assembling something that would look like a fair dinner for all of them. Wyatt, Nellie, and Gracie had broken out the sprinklers, which made it so that, by the time they went to sit and eat, most of the kids were wrapped in towels, hair wet and dangling in their faces.

In due time, everyone went ahead and changed and got into bed... or sleeping bags, in the two kids' rooms on the first floor and in the guest room and the art room on the second. Quiet reigned... mostly.

"Now where do you think you're going, Sneaky?" Lucas craned his head back when he heard a creak on the stairs. Sure, it could have been one of his daughters, or any number of their young guests, but something told him that it wasn't, that it would be his granddaughter instead, and he was correct. She came upon what the group sitting around the living room had affectionately called 'Turtles After Dark,' which counted three couples, two aunts, an uncle, her father, but not her mother or her baby sister, and they all knew this was who she was looking for.

"Hey, come here," Taylor held out a greeting arm and Tori hurried the rest of the way before dropping into his lap, where he closed his arms around her. "Your mom's outside with Sunny," he gave her the information she sought, and he could tell as well as the rest of them did that she wanted to run off at once but held back, not wanting her stepfather to think that she didn't want to stay with him as much as she wanted to go see her mother and baby sister. "I know where to find you," he promised her with a smile, and that was all she needed to know before she dashed back up to head outside. With how she shared her time between her parents' homes, they had all come to a sort of arrangement, making sure to make up for lost time later on.

Lucas got up to follow his granddaughter, catching a quiet snicker from his wife, which he responded to with a tip of his invisible hat before getting the door open and following Tori outside. There, they came upon Ella with baby Sunny snug in her arms, having just been fed. When she heard the door, she looked over and smiled, seeing who it was.

"Couldn't sleep?" she asked Tori aa she came and sat by her. Tori shrugged, resting her head against her mother's arm, the better to stare at her sister. It was such a flip from how she'd been feeling for a while, before the birth. Now, she would look to Sunny with such fascinated love in her eyes, always, and it would be the sweetest thing.

She wasn't alone in that feeling of overwhelming love for the baby girl. After he sat next to his big girl, she looked over at him, and she indicated that he could go ahead and take the baby. He didn't have to be convinced, and once the transfer had been done, Tori climbed into her mother's arms, to resume her Sunny Watch. Both girls would be sound asleep by the time they'd be carried inside.

Lucas held his granddaughter against his chest, unable to fathom the fact that she was nearly a month old already as he gently brushed at her hair, or her back, or held her tiny hand or her sweet, tiny foot... He remembered holding her big sister like that, too, not so long ago, and between her and his own girls, he knew more than ever how preciously short this time would inevitably be. He would enjoy it while he could.

Back inside the house, Maya was having to hold her fingers to her lips even as she pressed them together so not to burst out laughing, watching Dylan go on with his story. Some of this went to the story itself, while the rest went to how her old friend was riding the line between amusing his fellow turtles and potentially traumatizing his little brother and Maya's son-in-law and former student. Taylor gave off the impression of being caught between terror and hallucinating in his dad-with-a-baby exhaustion.

"Okay, new topic?" Nadine finally came to Taylor's rescue, chuckling, which in turn made the others laugh with her while Taylor nodded and Dylan just grinned and stretched forward to tap his brother's leg in 'apology.'

They had to sympathize for him, with all the interweaving connections of his family, by blood, by marriage… He wasn't a kid anymore, and they weren't going to treat him like one either, but it wasn't so long ago that they would have never considered including him in some of their conversations, and now he was being taken into this other side of his brother's life, his in-laws' lives, and it was… a lot… yeah, a lot. To Dylan, Maya, and the others… It was hilarious, definitely hilarious, but they were also too nice to let it go on too long. And besides, they had something monumental to discuss, too – Zay's words, no one else's.

This coming fall, Marianne Friar would be entering the fourth grade along with her friends. And while it remained unknown to her as of yet exactly which class she'd end up in, it had finally become too much for Zay to keep hidden the fact that his friends' daughter's name featured on his list for the new school year. To hear it out of Nadine, who of course had also known, he'd come home with the list the day he'd gotten it, with the giddiness of someone waiting to see if they had been accepted into their top school. He'd made her look first, and she'd had the pleasure of messing with him for a little while before finally confirming that he'd have – again his words – his first Friar. To hear him talk about it, he wouldn't be satisfied until he'd had each and every one of them come through his classroom for a year.

All joking aside, he really was just so happy at the thought of having his best and oldest friend's firstborn – and younger sisters – in his class. He could think of no better way to honor what he and Lucas had had for all these years than by seeing to it that his children had a most wonderful time in the fourth grade, with a lot of knowledge and fun discoveries.

And beyond Marianne's kicking off her Babineaux Year – Maya's words now – there was something else coming along that had been awaited for a long time… maybe not as long, to hear it out of Zay, but still… While Maya would be there for day one of school – for her daughters and for her students, too – in these final days ahead of the year's beginning, she would be very busy, and she would be traveling, all to promote the release of a very special album, with songs by Portia Keller as performed by Maya Hart.

This would not be like any regular release, and that had been the goal for both the songwriter and performer. The album would not be toured. For one thing, it was in no way the right time for that in Maya's life, with her family, and her job, and her… Davenport… And for another, it was very important to her that this album be seen as Portia's and not hers. She was merely lending her voice to the girl's words, and she would not want anyone to forget it. She would be interviewed, along with Portia, and she would give a few performances on television, but that would be all. Portia had gotten to choose it all, and Maya had acted only as mentor and guide, nothing more. She got to watch her be excited about putting her work into the world, and that was all she needed from this.

Maya had pressed her influence into the project, how could she not, but this only so far as to ensure that their association would do what it needed to do. It would draw the attention that Portia deserved, all toward the music she had created and the talent that had brought it into existence. There were very few people who had gotten to hear any of the songs as yet, but those of them who had heard them would say just what Maya had hoped they would. They were impressed, they were awed. Here was this young girl with such phenomenal promise, at her age and with the experience she currently had, which was next to none… They couldn't wait to see what else she could do, and for now, they foresaw seeing her name pop up several times over the next awards season.

The living room session was more or less declared closed for the night when Lucas and Ella came in from outside, carrying the sleeping Tori and Sunny respectively. Taylor came along to collect his big girl and followed his wife up the stairs while the others made quick work of picking up anything left lying around the coffee table and headed off to their accommodations for the night. Maya and Lucas had a brief run through of their time inside and outside, with friends here and a daughter and granddaughters there. The discussion of Maya's upcoming promotion speed-tour with Portia was a reminder of how the next few days would take them apart from one another, but they didn't dwell on it too long, especially as they found a tiny visitor had burrowed her way into their giant bed, giant at least in comparison to her.

"Hey, this one's not one of ours, is she?" Lucas whispered, smirking, as he and Maya stood in the doorway.

"No, this one has all the looks of a Matthews," Maya replied just as quietly. "Think they'll notice? Because I don't mind keeping her right here," she added, approaching the curled up form of Aimee Orlando. The two and a half-year-old was very much growing up to take after her mother's looks, in turn calling up images of her grandparents, her grandfather in particular.

When Riley came up to look for her, Maya gave a good pout of disappointment for having to relinquish the toddler. Her best friend – from New York – had not even had to think very long when she'd gone to check in on her quartet and found only three. It didn't matter where she was, at home, at her grandparents', her uncle's, or her parents' friends' homes. If she was sleepy, she would beeline for the big beds and climb her way on to them. If she woke up again after she'd been returned to her siblings, there was a chance she'd creep her way back to this room, and that was the opposite of a problem as far as her hosts were concerned.

"This is always the part that feels the longest, isn't it?" Maya hummed as she and Lucas settled in for the night.

"Won't feel any shorter with you gone," he pointed out, pulling her nearer, which made her laugh in sympathy. "We'll get through it, I know," he added, and she nodded before turning her head to look at him. "But I am going to miss this." She smiled, and he kissed her.

"We always do," she pointed out, and he nodded, kissed her nose, which tickled, and made him look like he would do it again. "We are not starting that, okay," she gave him a pointed look, rendered slightly less effective by her grin. "There are tiny girls roaming this house and they could come in at any second."

"That would be inconvenient," he agreed, tacking on a look as though he was considering tempting fate anyway.

"Lucas Thomas Friar, don't you even…" she laughed.

"Hey, you're the one who's going away for days, what am I supposed to do if I miss you already?" he 'complained.'

"Yeah, well, you should have thought about that before we agreed to this sleepover," she replied with a good brow raise that came close to breaking his resolve. But he held it together, going so far as to lean and whisper at her ear in case there were small ears roaming about, who could hear him suggest they take a stroll down to the Hex, for something that rhymed… "Well that's…" Maya didn't know whether to blink, gasp, or laugh, and possibly did all three at once. He shrugged, awaiting her response. Really, at this point, there could only be one.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners