A/N: [November 4th 2024]

November 4th 2023

Chapter 308
We Rise Into a New Beginning

None of them were happy about the fact that they would not be traveling to Arkansas this year. It was a family tradition now, and while Maya and Lucas could remember it becoming that, for their children, it was just what they had done for all their lives.

When the time would come for them to start making travel plans, when they would pull out the suitcases and start figuring out what they would bring, all of that... It was the signal that they had made it once again to this moment, and it was thrilling. As the girls were getting older now, those of them who could properly remember the past year's trip especially, they would look forward to it all, and they would think of things they wanted to do once they got out there...

But now this year was different, much as they wished that it wasn't. This year, they had lost their great gramps, and everyone who had loved him, even now that two months had gone by, continued to carry sadness in them about it. They could have gone, could have gathered there in his memory, but the truth was such that they knew what that trip would have been like, and no one needed to experience it.

Maya knew that this could be a dangerous precedent to set for the future, and she wasn't the only one to think about it. Ella had mentioned, once the frames had been gifted and she could share the story of that shopping trip, how Marianne was worried. She thought that, if they didn't go this year, it might make it so that they'd decide not to go next year either, and the year after that, and on, and on, bringing their lovely tradition to an end.

It was the last thing any of them intended to happen, though she would have been lying if she said it was impossible. She could see it all happen so easily, and she tried not to think about it... but what good would that do?

For now, all they could focus on was the present. They were staying in Austin, fine. So what would they do, all of them, as they headed into the last days of the year? Several ideas were thrown around, but one of them remained at the top, the more they thought it over, and finally it was set. It was time for them to have a grand old Sleepster.

With all of them coupling up, starting families, their group needed little to no effort in order to become so numerous that they never knew where to put everyone. Even when they tried to keep it to a small number, it was never small. They could be thankful in that respect that they had the old Zvolensky house to depend on. When Sophie and the others heard of this Sleepster plan, there was no need for any of them to ask how many they could bring. They could and they should invite as many people as they could think of. And that was good...

Teddy Hart-Lane was the only one of Maya's siblings who had not chosen to come and stay with her when he went to college. He could have done it, and she would have welcomed him instantly. But he'd had this plan in his head from the start and he'd followed through on it. Maya had always been proud of him for this, and they were just as close as any of the others. Now, he came to his big sister with news.

"We want to have the wedding before the baby comes, you know. Well, we were thinking we'd like to have it before the end of the year, nothing big." This came as she'd just told him about the Sleepster, and before either of them realized that they were heading down that road, it became that they would have the wedding in the midst of this Sleepster, at the SCAR house.

It wasn't going to be a surprise, it couldn't be, and they didn't want it to be. As much of a whirlwind as it would seem to be, they wanted to keep their closest people as involved as they could be, even if there wouldn't be any big reception, nothing more than the people they loved most there around them in that house, the family they had built around themselves before and after the two of them had so much as met and started to get to know one another, fall in love, form a family… So that's just what they did, and the days trickled away, bringing them on to The Day a lot faster than they might have anticipated.

Everyone had been so excited about this New Year's Eve-Sleepster-Wedding day, and as the Friars arrived at the house, everyone they saw, whether they were the residents of the house or their fellow guests, the feelings were the same. They couldn't wait to be there, for everything to happen, whether it was for the wedding, or the sleepover, or the countdown and the fireworks… There was so much happening all at once, all good things, thrilling things, so how else were they supposed to feel?

For sure, so long as they didn't see her, a lot of the kids were particularly eager to see the bride. They hadn't seen Priya's dress yet, but for all they'd heard everyone talk about it, they knew it was something they would want to see as soon as they could, too. Possibly, a part of that hype had been cultivated by their parents, knowing the effect that all their young giddiness would have on her. The more her body had been changing along with this new pregnancy, she'd been struggling with her image, especially as she prepared to marry the man she loved. But then with all of them there, all so happy to see her… They made her smile in ways she would not have predicted.

Maya would never have imagined that this tradition she'd built up along with her little sisters could have grown and evolved into what it had become, but then at the same time it did very much feel in line with the spirit of why it had been created in the first place. She'd been grown, out in the world and becoming her own person, all the while being gifted the most unexpected and beloved of siblings when she'd always foreseen herself being alone, just her mother and her, for what felt like an eternity. All she ever wanted was to honor that gift and never allow herself or any of her siblings to lose it. With that, the Sleepster had started, and it had continued. It had grown, expanded, into what it was today, where her siblings were slowly but surely becoming as grown as she'd been and then some. Several of them now had families of their own, and between them and her family-bonded friends and their growing homes… These nights gave them a chance to pull together and remember who they were with each other.

There would soon be one more child among them, adding to the number already crawling past common sense for a sleepover, and that was far from making any of them think that they should ever put a stop to any of it. At the same time, it was to wonder what would happen as the years went by, as some of them would go and have more children, or start having them in the first place, as more spouses were added to the mix, too… Sure, they had the benefit of the SCAR house as needed, but one look at all of them as they arrived, and settled in, and mingled, on this sleepover/New Year's Eve party/wedding, and it was impossible not to think that this… this was all kind of a lot. Meals alone would either involve enough preparation, or stacking of actual cooking, that they now freely turned to take-out, if not outright catering.

It could have made a lot of sense for them to go that way on this Sleepster, especially with the wedding, but in the spirit of Teddy and Priya's wish for an intimate affair, they had all put in the effort, bringing together dinner in several dishes that would be hurried into the kitchen by the children, all of them standing at the ready, eager to get their turn at it. Everything had been prepared so that they could move at once to go and eat together, and so they did, at the massive seating set-up that Sophie, Chiara, Asher, Ray, and their children had put together before their guests arrived. Teddy, Priya, and Lily sat in honor, their family and friends around them and so happy to be part of this moment in their lives.

"I want to see the dress," Aubrey came to hug her arms around her mother as they later stood in wait, in one of the guest rooms. It had felt more appropriate than ever for them to turn to the old standard in their sleepovers, with girls here and guys there, as they were also there for a wedding, and so this brought them to this moment, waiting for Priya to emerge and show them her look as soon as Emma and maid of honor Lily finished helping her get ready.

Lily would be ten years old in this brand new year about to begin, and year to year she had truly turned into a smaller version of her mother. She had also known Teddy Hart-Lane since she was all of three years old, and anyone who knew her and her soon-wed family would say that she had counted him as good as a father since long before he and her mother had moved in together, or they'd become engaged. The funny thing there, the sweet thing there, was that people would see her, and know her, and if they'd know Teddy, too, they'd say at once that she had something of him, too, blood or no blood.

If she were in the other room, where the men and boys had gathered while he got ready, she would have seen that her soon to be official stepfather felt everything for her that she felt for him and then some. As plain as it was to see to everyone that the two cared for one another, for some there was a whole lot more to it. To his big sister, who knew so much of what this connection would be forged on, having been in Lily's shoes at one time in her life, it was so deeply evident, and for that, Lucas was well aware of it, and he thought about it a lot as he watched the man prepare to marry his Priya. The wedding wouldn't suddenly make them something they hadn't already become over time, but it was still a step that felt deeply important. He was marrying Priya, they were having a baby together in a few months' time, but he was also tightening this bond that he had with Lily, and if that was not the best way to begin a new year, then he didn't know what was.

The weather was as favorable as they could have hoped for it to be, on a thirty-first of December in Austin. They were all able to make their way out on to the grounds outside the house, in a field of lights that had been arranged around the space, with the many guests of this 'small' wedding gathered around, brandishing their own lights to add to those on strings. With the number of children involved, they had gone the way of lights that did not require candles, or fire, which enabled them to vary the colors, four shades that were to represent the bride, the groom, their young flower of a girl, and their unborn child, all of them shining around while the couple stood before Lucas. Had he predicted or intended for this newly acquired means to marry people would become so called upon over the last few years? Not in the slightest, and yet here stood the fourth of those couples he now got to bring together as husband and wife.

Of all of Maya's siblings, likely because he had been the only one of them not to come and live in the Friar house, and that he had lived outside of Texas for a few years while in college, he was for sure the one that Lucas had to admit he knew the least, and maybe this also would mean that they weren't as close, but then none of that really mattered. He had always been part of their lives, near or far, and he knew that they had asked him to do this for them not only because he had the means to do it but also because they wanted him to be the one to do it. Teddy was truly one of those brothers he had gained in marriage, and now, in every way possible, Priya was becoming like a sister.

They could have made it so that the couple became husband and wife in those final seconds of 2040, or even on the strike of midnight that would bring along 2041, but they chose to hold off, to have the actual wedding earlier in the evening, this to give the children a fighting chance at being awake and not nodding off through it all. They had all done their best to prepare, to make sure that they'd be awake for midnight, for the countdown, even as some of the older kids among them would for sure have their best chance yet, but experience had taught them that anyone could be taken down by heavy eyes and the draw of sleep. So, the vows had been exchanged with a few hours to spare before the count from ten. They had been wonderful hours, their party being everything a wedding reception would hope to be and then some, and when the final minutes drew down at last, those of them who had made it were able to close in together, calling down the seconds. Maya and Lucas stood together, their girls – those who hadn't dozed off – crowded around them, and it was impossible to say what their favorite part would be. Ezra being awake somehow would be up there, naturally, but the prize might have had to go to how the girls were focused on Shonagh, on sharing this moment with her, the turn of the year that, on either end, had her as part of their family. This moment would also mean that they were getting closer and closer to the point where she'd finally fly home again, but that was still months away, and right now they had fireworks in the sky above them.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners