A/N: [July 1st 2024] So, not sure if anyone will still be checking in, but had some things going on that made so I couldn't write for a while, and once I ran out of chapters I'd already written, it took a long time before I was able to finish the 2023 chapters, and then to plan for 2024 and get that started. I'm currently two thirds of the way through writing the February chapters, so I still have a long way to go. The same goes for "We Three Hearts," where I currently only have four chapters at the ready and several more to catch up on, though I'm not sure yet how that's going to go. For now, I'm going to start by putting up the rest of 2023 while I continue making my way through the 2024 backlog. Thank you for your patience, and if you are here, thank you for reading. :)

September 15th 2023

Chapter 258
We Prepare Our Voices

"MOM! Remy got my camp shirt and she won't give it back!" Kacey's shout startled her, and Maya sighed, making an exasperated face at Ezra, who only found it funny and giggled, pressing his head into her shoulder.

"Don't tell anyone, but right now you're my favorite," she whispered before stepping out into the hall, almost bumping into the six-year-old.

"Mom, Remy..."

"I know, I heard," Maya told her, continuing before her daughter could argue some more. "You two are exactly the same size, just take hers."

"But I want mine," Kacey pleaded, and Maya was stuck between the memory of a very small baby and her husband's eyes staring back at her.

"Remy," she called out with a sigh. "Give Kacey back her shirt, please?" There was a great huff, and a moment later the desired shirt was flung out into the hall. "And put yours on, yeah?"

"Yeah, yeah," Remy's voice was heard while Kacey picked up her shirt, confirming ownership by looking at the spot where her name had been written by her mother. She smiled and went to change.

Once everyone would be set to go, they would pack up and take off, the passengers for the most part thrilled for what was to come. One of them was trying to get in the spirit, but it clearly wasn't going as well as she would have liked.

The closer they had been getting not only to the start of camp but to the start of summer, Marianne had been chomping at the bits, knowing that her faraway friend would be on his way before long. Haru Matsuoka was set for another summer with his aunt and uncle and his cousin Max, and he was still expected to do so, only there had been a delay, and so he had not arrived yet. Now he would be missing the first day of camp with the rest of them, and Marianne was sad.

She mostly kept it to herself, the better not to ruin the moment for her younger sisters. They mostly didn't notice anything. Lucy had been looking at her like she could sense something was off but she wasn't sure, and Mackenzie looked to be at her wackiest, almost with a pointed desire to make her sister laugh, but mostly everyone just looked forward to getting to camp.

It was almost more emotional for Lucas and Maya this time around, if only as they noticed how little their girls seemed troubled with the parting. All of them had gotten big enough now that they knew and trusted that they would be somewhere safe and would be collected at the end of the day. It was what they should always want, sure, but at the same time it was a reminder that even their littlest girls were not as little as they used to be. When everyone would be where they were meant to be for the day, it would be down to Maya, Lucas, and Ezra, back on the road and spending the day together.

They would run a few errands before returning home, but before all that, they would make one stop out at the Silvan Hughes Theater, there to get a look in at the Stage Ready and Backstage Ready Camps. It had been a very big debate this year for Marianne whether she'd go out to her regular camp this summer, or if she'd set off for a round at Stage Ready camp. It made sense for her to go, didn't it? She was now a repeat performer in musicals, having done three productions in as many years, but then not all her friends were interested in trading in one camp for the other, and she really wanted to spend her summer with all of them. This didn't even factor in the part where she would have also loved to be at the Sullivan Stables camp, too, somehow. In the end, she'd chosen to stay where she was, taking comfort in how she had ties to both locations and could always cross over now and again if she so desired.

If she had come to this camp instead, Maya and Lucas had no doubt that she would have loved every second of it. She would have come home with so many stories, so many details, that she would have had to speak non-stop and still wouldn't have gotten to the bottom of it by bedtime. Maybe they would have to see if she wanted to attend the regular sessions when fall rolled around again. Everyone's schedules were already so packed, but then leave it up to someone who was half Maya to be well in touch with her multitasking side.

After leaving the theater, it was on to home for the three Friars. When Lucas asked what they should do next, Maya smiled and directed him to follow her as she carried Ezra along. He was still asleep from the car ride, and he was nestled securely in her arms. Into the Hex she carried him before handing him to Lucas, who sat on the couch with him. It never stopped being one of her favorite things to see him with their sleeping children, especially as babies, and this ended up fitting very well with what she had to show him.

They were coming very close to their wedding anniversary, which meant another year's song for them to record. She hadn't let him hear her plans for it yet, but she pulled up the track now, not too loud. Ezra was not disturbed. This song's melody, even without words, breathed with how he had come into their lives, into their family. What else could a song about this year in their family be about? He had been unexpected to them, and now that he had been with them for half a year, they could not imagine their lives without him as their son, their little brother…

"I think he'll do just fine with the recording, huh?" Lucas hummed, looking down at the sleeping boy gripping at him. He had grown, naturally, since the day he'd been left for them, but he still felt so small to them, and it was so easy to just sit there and hold him for hours on end.

"Better than some of his sisters, yeah," Maya smirked, reaching over to brush at his small hand. Lucas struggled not to laugh at this.

They'd had all their girls in the studio with them whenever they'd recorded the first anniversary songs after their births. This had been one thing with Mackenzie and Aubrey, who had been two to three months old when their turns had come along. Marianne had been nine months old and luckily just fascinated by everything she saw and heard, their musical pumpkin in the making. The triplets, on the other hand, had been very near to eleven months, not to mention that they'd had each other… Getting them all to sit still or do anything so that they wouldn't just scream their heads off and take over the vocals was another matter. In the end though, the result was kind of exactly what they would have wanted it to be. It was a representation of what this past year had been.

"So, what's the plan?" Lucas asked, once the track had been silenced. Maya looked at him, and he knew that she'd understood what he meant. He wasn't asking about their day, or this song. It had been the big question between them, hadn't it? Or at least it had been a matter for her to figure out, for which he had, as ever, been her sounding board. Her next big music project.

"I… I'm trying to figure that out," she admitted. She had nothing else to give as of yet, and he understood, so there the question remained.

The day went by fast, as it would. After spending some quality time with their baby boy, they got him settled back in his car seat, the better to go and collect his big sisters. There was no way they would not have loudly complained if he wasn't there along with Mom and Dad when they left camp, oh, no way. As little as he still was though, all they had to do was say that they were going to get the girls, and he had a big smile on his face and a big case of 'pick me up now!' arms.

He was wide awake when they arrived, and when they all reacted at seeing him, he was squealing and batting his arms and legs around, making it as difficult as ever to keep hold of him, but he managed it enough to crouch and bring him to level with his smallest sisters. They were all around him, and it got a bit overwhelming in the end, wanting to see them all at once, and he started to cry. He didn't calm down again until they were all in their seats and driving toward home, where Marianne led her younger sisters in the tried and true Friar way. They sang together, and Ezra eventually stopped crying. To see the way he responded to the music, Maya was convinced he would grow up to be as musically inclined as she was, and as Marianne was… Lucas tended to think the same, and he couldn't wait to hear how it would all turn out.

It was probably a good thing that they had so much happening around them, making it next to impossible for them to get a word in. On this occasion, it made it so that neither Maya nor Lucas was able to accidentally spoil the surprise that awaited the girls back at the house, one of them in particular. It took right up until they were nearing the house for Lucy to notice and call out the fact that there was a car parked up there, and when the others looked, Marianne only had to notice whose car it was in order to know exactly what was waiting for her. She would have jumped right out of her seat and run the rest of the way if her parents hadn't convinced her to stay put just a few more seconds.

The moment she was free and clear, she did jump out, there to be reunited with her friend, who had been sitting in wait with his aunt, uncle, and cousin. When she saw him, she stopped in surprise.

"What happened to your arm?" Marianne asked Haru as she hurried and inspected the cast that covered it from hand to elbow.

"I was trying to do something, for my film, and I fell," he explained, not nearly as troubled over the ordeal as she seemed to be. "You want to sign my cast?"

The way Marianne's eyes sparked… she had never so embodied her mother's DNA. In next to no time, she had collected a whole box of markers, and she was sitting on the front steps, across from Haru, making the very most of the blank canvas. By the way he let her go, he didn't look overly concerned with leaving space for anyone else to add to the thing. She was adding small doodles, one after the other, knowing just the things he'd want to be looking at all day, all the while scolding him about the fact that he'd gotten hurt in the first place.

As they looked on, the Friars and the Farrells were very much in agreement about what the future would hold for the ten-year-olds. They would either be the very best of friends for as long as they lived, or they would fall in love… possibly both… probably both… if they hadn't gotten there already. What they could all agree on was that the next few summers were going to be very, very interesting.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners