August 6th 2023

Chapter 218
We Try To Make It Count

They would have loved nothing more than for this break to go on. Maybe not forever, because despite everything they did all look forward to the things they were currently on break from, but for sure longer than what they'd had. A lot of it went down to the days going by so fast, what with them being at home, the whole family together, a family that now counted a new and… very unexpected… baby boy. Having Ezra there with them was very much the gift that kept on giving. They hadn't known to so much as expect him until the night he'd been left outside their house, which mean that they'd had zero time to prepare for him, but then he'd come, and they'd run with it. A lot of the time it could feel like maybe the girls had been on the right track, and he really was a fairy…

His origins remained very much unknown, though Maya suspected that, the more his features developed, the more she'd find herself looking at her students, really staring at them, to see if she might find any hints of a resemblance between them and Ezra. She wouldn't be able to help herself. She'd already been doing it before the break, and she was just one sleep away from getting to do it all over again. Tomorrow, they were going back to school, all of them, students, teachers… Lucas would continue to look after Ezra during the day, and Maya and the girls were all getting to feel envious of him for this. They would have loved to spend more time with the baby, as they had been doing over the break.

They'd had Christmas with him, and then the turn of the new year… Lucas and Maya would not forget watching the girls with him, at the countdown. They'd all submitted to solid afternoon napping to make it to midnight, but the fact that Ezra had been awake had been pure baby chance. He'd woken up in the last minutes of the year, and when the time had come, they had counted down with him, going as though he was participating with them… It was kind of exciting for them to think that, with his being born on the first of December, they were celebrating his being one month old with him.

When they had seen that last day of the break approaching, it had felt immediately important for them to do something special about it, for one-month-old Ezra, for all of them, and the solution was right there in front of them: They needed to have a Sleepster. They needed to introduce Ezra to their tradition, and Sunny, too, while they were at it. They weren't about to make it something massive – not like what they did sometimes – but they could still enough people to make this a great night. They put the word out, and they came away with more or less the guest list they'd figured they would have. Four of the siblings were very easy to rope in, as they either lived in the house or across the road from it. After that, there was no way that MJ or Haley would miss it, and the same for Ella and Taylor and the girls. The rest of the Hart-Lanes were unable to make it, much as they would have liked to go, but they promised to make up for it in the near future, and their big sister had no worries about them keeping their words.

"What's his middle name going to be?" Marianne asked as she followed her mother around and helped get things set up for their three guests, who were to share the room upstairs that night. Maya looked at her. "He's going to have one, isn't he? They didn't give him one, so we will, right?"

"Yeah, I guess we will," Maya told her daughter. It wasn't that she had never thought about it, but in the midst of everything else, it had never felt like a pressing matter. "What do you think it should be? Any ideas?"

"Not sure," Marianne moved to sit on the bed, only to be discouraged from this when her mother cleared her throat. They'd just made that bed, and the inflatable mattress, for Haley, Maisie, and MJ. Marianne smiled before considering the question again. "What about Peter?" she finally offered, and Maya laughed.

"Now I wonder where you got that idea," she gave her a look, and Marianne responded with an innocent shrug. "Ezra Peter Friar…" Maya tried, looking at her daughter to see what she thought.

"I'm not sure," Marianne admitted, disappointed. The name felt so attached to the boy now, and it would show how he'd become a part of them, him and his 'magic.' It just didn't have the right sound to her, and Maya could tell.

"It's not like he'd use it every day," she pointed out, in hopes of reconciling her with the idea. She could see exactly her logic for it, just as she knew that everyone in the family would only need to hear it once in order to find any and all other options to be entirely inadequate. It couldn't be anything except Peter, not now. "How about you think about it for a while, and we get back to it?"

It was the only solution they could have for the time being, seeing as their guests – all seven of them – soon arrived. Some of the younger Friars were disappointed at not having more people over for this sleepover, but that feeling didn't last long once they all got to play around together. They all had so much fun that, when it came time to start the pre-bed routine for them, they protested insistently so that they might stay. They had to negotiate what turned into something of a full performing cast of a bedtime story. Their storytellers tried not to make it look like they were as willing as they actually were, or else they might have been tricked in staying even longer and constructing an entire sequel. The idea was to get them to sleep, not energize them more than they currently were. Eventually, they got there, until everyone under the age of ten was asleep, and the rest of them could leave them to it. Marianne wasn't going to have too much of an extension on her bedtime, but she'd get to sit with them a while, and that was all she wanted.

They at least waited until after Marianne and Maisie had both bowed out for the night before bringing up the question that a few of them 'interested parties' had been eager to ask. School was starting the next morning, which would mean a return to a lot of good things for plenty of them, and maybe some not so good ones, too. And where an unfortunately high number of them were concerned, one of those not so good things was a person, one by the name of Sandra Davenport. Students, teachers, none were spared. They'd all do their best to guard their tongues when they were on school grounds, but here…

Maya was all too aware of this, as she had been from the beginning, but of course now with Ezra among them… As expected, when she'd first gone back to school after the night when the baby had been left for them to find, it hadn't taken long for the news to make its way to the principal that their art teacher had taken in a newborn. They'd made it through the first day, which was something, but then from the next day, she'd been treated to a 'caring visit,' asking about this 'little angel.' It had never felt so important to Maya that she stick to the story, that she not let the fact that he'd been left in a box on her doorstep get to her boss. Much as she despised the woman, she couldn't claim her to be dumb enough not to piece together that Ezra's parents – she still felt that it had to be both of them – were students at their school. The immediate impression she was given there was that it would not end well for any of them if either of those names reached Sandra Davenport's ears.

"I bet if you reached out to that old cheer coach we could get so much on old Sandy," MJ told his sister with a smirk that was so him but also made his resemblance to both of his parents shine through.

"I don't know how I feel about forcing that woman to get back into this when she clearly went and got as far away from it as she could," Maya shook her head.

"Oh, come on, you have to. Then maybe we can get rid of the admin devil," Haley pleaded.

"You guys have a lot of names for her," Nellie commented.

"And those are just the ones we'll say around you," MJ squinted at his big sister, who stuck her tongue out at him.

"I'm kind of with them on this," Gracie declared, which very quickly got her almost tackled by her little sister from gratitude.

"Same," Taylor lifted his hand, and Ella did so as well.

"If she wasn't messing with everything so much, think how many kids you'd actually have in your classroom," Lucas told his wife, and Maya sighed as she sat back.

"I'm thinking about that part, too, I am," she promised.

She could sort of spot them out sometimes, if they didn't outright mention that they'd tried getting into her class, the ones who'd been denied. And she would look at her class, and she'd know what her capacity was, realistically. She couldn't say that she could take in every one of them, no, sooner or later there was a limit, but she knew she wasn't there yet, with the groups that she had, and even if she got there, she knew, part of her brain wouldn't give up seeking a solution, so they could all get what they wanted.

"Alright, enough talk about her, I'll have enough of dealing with her tomorrow," Maya sighed. "You guys, what's up?" she gestured to her siblings, her daughter and son-in-law… They all smiled, chuckled, promising that they'd gotten the message.

They were all doing alright. Sure, all of them had some thing or another in their lives that could have been a little different, a little better, but none of it so bad as to make them feel that way. Nellie and Gracie both were understandably overwhelmed with school work at times, but beyond that they were so happy to be living with their sister and her family, to get to be sisters in one house again, to have the boyfriends they had, the friends they had… Wyatt would still find it difficult to juggle school, and work, and taking care of his son, but one only had to look at him to know that he did not mind those difficulties so much when he'd be with his Finn, when he'd see him smile, or learn something new…

Haley never wanted to express how much she hated not having Madelyn around, but then that was just how it had to be for now, and she always looked forward to catching her up on everything. MJ was staring down the barrel of graduation drawing nearer, and all the run up to college, and it was stressful, but he could think of plenty of upsides to all that. Haley 'accused' him of only being upset that going to college would take him away from his secret crush, which got her big 'I'm going to embarrass you later, in big brother fashion' eyes form him. The others laughed. Evidently, she did not know who this supposed crush was, and she was dying to know. MJ gave away nothing, nor did they expect him to.

"Oh, I got him, I got him," Maya hurried ahead, later, as she and Lucas finally headed up to their room just as they could hear Ezra start to cry. "You're going to have him all day tomorrow, let me have this," she declared, and his laughter behind her made her smile. "Hey, hey, little Pan, you're alright, I've got you…" she hushed as she picked him up. "Mama's got you…" she promised. It was the first time she'd called herself that for him, and she realized it even as she said it. "Mama's got you."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners