A/N: Still a day behind...

July 24th 2023

Chapter 205
We Open Our Doors

Knowing how she'd felt about his going away when he did, Lucas had several ideas of what Donna Devereaux was doing, waiting for him as he drove into the ranch his first day back from New York. Oh, she was happy for Maya, and of course she though he should be out there with her, but the event! He might ask her if she was concerned that she wouldn't be able to pull it off, just her and Britt, but he knew better than to suggest anything like that.

She greeted him with a hello, and how was the trip, and any other pleasantries would have to wait until later because they had business to talk about, they had an event, and now that he was back, she had loads to catch him up on. It was something that he managed to go and set his things down in his office, check in with Olivia, and Sylvie, before she got into it. Once he'd done that, he had no alternative really but to be all hers, to hear what she had to say.

It was understandable that she'd have plenty to say over his heading out of town, leaving her in to all this. Yes, she was the event coordinator, it was her job, and she did it splendidly – as she'd never miss a chance to remind you or anyone, but seeing as this event was more or less his event, she did not like having to work around his being out of touch for the last couple of days. Lucas had known her long enough that he came with gifts at the ready, offerings, that he might be forgiven. Going by the look on her face, he'd aimed true, and she had nothing to strike back with. So, they continued on, focusing on what was ahead for them.

The event was a fundraiser, bringing together many local basketball teams such as Lucas' fellow medical professionals. Many of those teams had been their opponents in the past, some perhaps friendlier than others, sure, but at the end of the day – and most importantly in this case, when the cause was worthy – no playful rivalry stood in the way of this. They were coming together for this in order to benefit other players, children and teens, who could do with the support of their peers. It would all be great, he was sure, and he wouldn't have left in the midst of preparations if it hadn't been that he had to go, to accompany his daughters and support his wife in this opportunity she'd been given. Now that he was back, as he promised Donna today, he would be all in and working overtime to make sure that his event went off as it should. Donna knew him enough that she wouldn't see this promise as an empty one.

He started out, after they split off, by heading over to the bed and breakfast to talk to Cristina about her part of it all. While the people coming to attend the fundraiser were all locals and wouldn't technically need accommodations, it had been an early discussion between Lucas, Cristina, Bishop, and Donna that they had this opportunity right here to piece together a prize to auction off as part of the fundraiser. They could offer a stay at Mel's B&B, complete with meals, and riding, and even a visit of the sets.

There'd been some work to do on that front, to ensure that the crew was okay with this, but it hadn't been that much of a roadblock, not with the people involved or the reasons why they sought to do it all. Katy was more than happy to open doors for her son-in-law and his teammates.

Cristina had done a great job in piecing together this auction prize, as Lucas had imagined she would. It was fair to say that, were he not this close to the event, he would have gladly put in for the prize himself, taken Maya out for a night or two… She would have found it funny for them to stay here, would have found many a way to have so, so much fun with it all.

"You know, if you wanted to put in for this, you and Bishop, we'd be happy to look after Rafa and Evie for you," Lucas told Cristina, and it made her laugh.

"Bishop has been saying the same thing," she revealed, and it did sound like his old college friend and present colleague. "But like I told him… I live here," she gestured around them at the great house turned bed and breakfast.

"You do," Lucas could only smile and agree.

"I was thinking of planning something similar, just… not here, so if the offer stands…" Cristina gave him a look, and he chuckled.

"Consider it perpetually standing," he told her, and she smiled before reverting to her focus on the fundraiser and her prize pack.

"Rafa has been trying to convince Bishop to move in here with us, with me," Cristina revealed, and Lucas was amused to hear it. "He's been looking for ways to make it so that Evie would have her own room, too, whenever she's staying at her dad's."

"That sounds like him," Lucas stated, and Cristina smiled. Her son and Bishop's daughter were so much as siblings to one another by now that it only made the connection in the family feel stronger.

Even as he continued to make the rounds of the ranch and the various elements of the fundraiser, Lucas was made aware that they had visitors, specifically members from a few of the teams involved, including his own. When he heard this, he made his way out to find them, to greet them and take them along to look at everything, too. It was very easy, whether they were teammates or opponents in this, to slip into play talk, teasing one another… This was something that Lucas was instantly drawn to think about, reflecting how much he continued to miss the more active parts of his team and being part of it. He did his best, as always, not to dwell on those, and he generally did well enough. He'd gotten used to it by now, whether he liked it or not.

As they went on ahead, their opponents drifted ahead, leaving Lucas to continue at a wandering pace with both Sydney Carter, mother to the Bennett kids, and Jacob 'Trace' Tracey, who had been the one to recruit Lucas into the team, several years back. All of his teammates were important to him in some way, but he would have been lying if he said that these two in particular didn't stand above the others for him. A lot of that came down to what they had all been for one another, what they had accomplished together and apart. Their lives were all different, their careers, too, even if they connected by the core of what their individual jobs were about, but they all had this thing that brought them together, and it was kind of wonderful that way.

Not much had changed for Lucas and his position as a player since the attack, in that he didn't have a position. He hadn't played, and he did not intend to play again, and his teammates respected that. They offered up their personal and professional opinions on all of it, as they would, but they didn't push. More than a few of them insisted that, for all he had gone through, he was doing very well, more than well, enough so that they didn't see why he wouldn't be able to get back out there again.

And if Lucas was honest with himself, he'd have to say that he was probably not as worse off as he told himself he was. Clearly, he had done plenty in the time since his attack… a year ago… How had it been a year already? He was doing alright, he really was. Maybe, deep down, the thing that kept him from stepping out on the court again was that he was afraid of what would happen when he did. What if he pushed himself too hard and then… And then everything really would get so much worse.

These days, he was just fine watching the team play whenever they did. He'd still be out there in the stands, as would Maya, as would their girls, all of them still very much bonded to the other kids as they had been from the start. What he loved to see these days was what his absence among others had afforded them: new players. They had two of them now. One was a nurse, a friend of Sydney's, while the other, to Lucas' great pleasure, was Dr. Ray Choi.

It hadn't taken long, once he and the rest of the family had moved over from Houston, for him to become curious about the team and for the team to become curious about him. Those who were in their same age bracket were very likely to remember him as a player back in high school, which spelled either good fortune or bad, depending on whether they were teammates now or opponents. Now he was part of them, and Lucas was met with another feeling that went and told him how his mother would have loved knowing that he was on the team. None of them were ever forgetting how he had lived with them, even if it had been brief in the long run. He was family, and they were proud of him.

With this in mind, Lucas looked to Sydney and Trace here, and he was reminded of his sort-of-brother mentioning something, a suggestion that his teammates were cooking up something at the moment, something to do with him. Maybe he gave himself away in watching them that day at the ranch, because before they all headed out again, they finally told him what was going on. They might have tried and brought it up at the fundraiser itself, something for their one team to ring in together in the middle of everything else, but now here they were.

Their team had been going along all these years, even before Lucas had become a part of it, and while they were all doing great the way they'd been all this time, truly, there would be times where their plans would devolve, all for the simple reason that they did not have any actual leadership. They didn't have a coach. And while they would have wanted for Lucas to come and play with them again even more than anything else, they were just as dedicated if not more to keep him in the loop, as one of them. This was their solution right here, and they found it to be a very good one. They wanted him to be their coach… if he was on board, naturally. They didn't want him to feel pressured in any way to say yes, and they would understand if this was not something he was into. But if he was, well, they would all be so lucky as to have him.

Lucas was stunned. There was no other word for it. He was stunned, and very immediately touched. Maybe a part of him had considered the possibility, but if he had then it had been so, so brief. After that, he was just stuck in this space of telling himself that nothing had changed when he felt the very opposite a lot of the time. He missed being involved with his team, directly involved, and now he would get to be that again, in a new role. He looked forward to getting started, and maybe a part of him, the more honest part, saw it for what it could be: a way for him to see whether his playing days were truly behind him.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners