July 18th 2023

Chapter 199
We Light the Morning

There were some memories in their lives that just felt stronger, more powerful, for how they had happened to the two of them together. They could very much have their own points of view, but they would both have been in it, and it would have been just as important for him as it would have been for her, and in that harmony, there was wonder… magic. They were remembering one of those moments right now, both of them barely awake as they were. They remembered a night, October 31st, Halloween, a party in their house when all at once their lives were changed. They became parents. They were handed this baby girl, just pulled into the world, and she became everything to them.

And that was ten years ago now. Ten whole years, ten… whole, wonderful, eventful years that they wouldn't trade for anything, not even for the promise of any dark patches along the way being turned to light again. Their pumpkin, their Sheriff Annie, their Hallowannie princess… She was ten years old, she was…

"She's already up, isn't she?" Lucas hummed, lips half pressed to his wife's shoulder and the flowers that adorned it.

"I thought maybe she'd come in here," Maya declared in a pensive tone, almost plaintive, and when Lucas responded by pulling her into turning to face him, the better to embrace her, she laughed. She gladly submitted to his hold, but she laughed, and she settled in. "I'm fine," she promised, realistically. "Mostly fine… I'll get over it. I am curious to know what she's up to though…" she turned her eyes up to her husband, and he matched her expression, which left them only one thing to do: they had to go find out.

They had to look a while longer than they'd expected before they actually found her. She wasn't in her room, where Mackenzie and Aubrey still slept in their beds, wasn't in the triplets' room, where Kacey and Remy were squeezed in together with Lucy in her bed. She wasn't anywhere on the first floor and, as they'd soon confirm, nowhere on the second floor either. Going down, they saw that she wasn't on the ground floor, and also that the key to the Hex was undisturbed. This might have started to worry them if not for how they finally caught a thread of her voice in the morning quiet, which led them down toward the basement.

As they slowly and quietly crept down – there was really no better word for it – her voice became clearer, even as it was joined by another, quieter in a way that was identified for coming from a screen, speakers, but also for its origin. Marianne was facing away from them where she sat, so they could see the laptop open before her, and there was the open window with the face of her faraway friend Haru, also in PJs, back in his home, hair barely contained and sticking up everywhere at the same time. Kimiko's 'Wolfy' brother was the one to give them away, as he spotted the moving figures behind his friend on his screen and reacted. When Marianne whirled around, she wasn't embarrassed, didn't insist for them to leave her. She just grinned, told Haru they'd talk again later, and closed the computer.

"He said he wanted to wish me happy birthday before it got too late, so we decided to do it now," Marianne informed her parents. When she remembered that they were all seeing each other for the first time this day, she smiled even brighter before moving up to hug them. They closed in around her, their little one really not so little anymore, either in age or in height… She was catching up fast on her mother.

Her coming had not felt the slightest bit private, not with where and when she'd been born, and nowadays her birthdays felt a lot like that, too, with the size of their family at home as it was. Just because Marianne had been ahead of them by a mile, it didn't mean everyone else wouldn't catch up quick. The rumble of feet from above was the thing to come and interrupt the birthday girl's moment with her parents. She had always loved so much being the big sister, and to know now that all her little sisters were seeking her out… there was that magic smile again, as much like her father's as it was like her mother's. She climbed up the stairs, not at a run but at a sneaky crawl, just as Maya and Lucas followed behind her.

They all arrived at the top even as the quintet landed from their descent. They all stopped, and saw each other, and the pack of little blondes ran for their big sister, closed in around her until it was a wonder that she didn't lose her balance. Watching them, Maya and Lucas were caught in the rush of more memories, those big, big, important ones, making them feel as they had felt many times before that one of the best things they had done – if they could lay claim to any of the credit in earnest – was raise these sisters to be as wonderfully bonded to one another as they were. They had each other. They would always have each other.

"Hey, there you are!" Nellie called as she came ahead of her twin and their 'stepbrother' and his son. Of course, she'd have to be the first one to get down and envelop her niece in a massive hug, and Marianne could always be counted on to match energies in a time like this, so she hugged her back just as tightly and maybe a bit tighter, going by the way Nellie started to laugh. "Happy birthday, happy, happy, happy," she punctuated each 'happy' with a kiss to the top of her sister's firstborn's head.

Marianne only made any effort to extricate herself when she could spot Gracie standing right there, and Nellie didn't impede the switch. As energetic as the previous hug was, this one was filled with all the softness of the one that held her now. MJ and Haley both would tease their older sister and say that she gave the best mom hugs that weren't from anyone who wasn't actually a mom. Gracie would take this as a compliment, every time.

They were all excited in their own ways for this day, but it was hard not to collectively decide – for the way it made them smile and laugh – that the most excited of them had to be Finneas. As Wyatt carried his son down, the one-year-old was clearly barely awake, but did he look like he knew that today was a big day for his aunt? He was probably just very happy to see her, as he usually was, but for today they decided that he absolutely knew it was her birthday, and he just couldn't wait to let her know. Marianne came right up to her uncle and extended her arms, and so she got to hold the tiny boy all through breakfast.

They could have done much if not all of the birthday celebrations the day before, or two days ago, instead of having it all go down on a Monday, but they had left it up to Marianne, and she'd wanted to wait, to have it all happen on her birthday, like most years, and so that was what they did. Sure, there'd been some little things across the weekend, from their visit to Nando's to the soccer practice, but today was The Day, and in full Hallowannie tradition, that meant that they weren't putting on regular, everyday clothes as they got ready for school, oh no. They were putting on their costumes, and they were doing all of it. Clothes, hair, makeup, accessories… There was so little time, but they were going to make it work, no doubt to it.

"Sometimes I think you agreed to take us all in over college just for this," Wyatt told his sister as he and the twins aided in the transformations. Nearby, Nellie and Gracie quietly chuckled.

"I resent the implications, Wyatt Hart-Lane, how dare you?" Maya pressed a hand to her chest in full dramatics. Her brother responded with a look in matching attitude, like he remained suspicious but would give her the benefit of the doubt.

Once they were all done, they had to have a quick photoshoot outside, chronicling this morning and the costumes as they were before the wear of the day, on this tenth birthday of Marianne Christine Friar's. They all crowded in around the camera when they were done, which Lucas captured as a final shot with his phone, because it really was the perfect illustration of their family, their girls in all their characters, looking at what their mother had done with her as she smiled through it all.

And then it was off to school, which guaranteed to be such a great day for all of them, whether because it was the first Halloween that they got to spend with a load of other kids, or because they already looked forward to how very funny it would be for all of them to be in class in costumes, or because it was their birthday. The partings still had their difficulties, as they had to, but the promise of what would come through the day and at the end of it was enough to motivate their hearts into excitement all over again. They had all challenged one another to be as their costumes throughout the day as much as possible, and once they separated from their parents, they remembered this, and they went off, doing their best to play their roles, to the best of their understanding. It would be just the kind of thing Maya and Lucas would look back on fondly… and more than likely cause heavy doses of teenaged embarrassment for bringing up in years to come.

"Hey, hey, hold on a minute," Lucas stalled the birthday girl before she could dash away, too, and she looked back at him… Ten years old… ten… "I got something for you," he told her, and her curiosity was immediately at the ready. She was looking him over now like she would find whatever this 'something' was just peeking out of a pocket somewhere that she could reach to, but there was none of that. Instead, he pulled out his phone, already set to show her… a picture. This might have been disappointing to some people, but not to Marianne, not when she knew what it likely meant: a story.

"That's when I was born," she declared. They weren't in their costumes anymore in the picture, no, but there was still some trace of it on them, and she was so little…

"It is, mostly," Lucas confirmed. "I guess this would qualify as your second day, even though you couldn't have been more than a few hours old."

"On your anniversary then," Marianne smiled up at him.

"Yeah, that's right," he smiled back. "I think you can tell in particular because we both look as wide awake as we look exhausted. We didn't want to close our eyes, we just wanted to keep looking at you, like we couldn't believe that you were actually real, and you were ours." Her response to this was to grab hold of his hand and give it a good squeeze, which made him laugh. "Telling me you're really real?" he guessed, and she nodded. "Well, it's always good to check," he agreed. "You can tell me as often as you'd like, yeah?" he whispered, and she nodded at him.

"I promise, Dad," she told him, and he squeezed her hand back.

"Do you want me to tell you the story of your first diaper?" he joked, and the stare he got back was too good. "Fine, fine, I'll wait for that one… for now."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners