A/N: [November 8th 2024]

November 8th 2023

Chapter 312
We Wake With New Life

The day really started to sink into him as he got in the driver's seat and pulled out of the ranch. He wasn't so tired as to feel unsafe about driving, but he for sure had aches in him to make him deeply eager to get home. The sun had gone down, the city illuminated around him, and all he could think about was how Remy had declared that it wasn't fair that the Christmas decorations were all gone. She much preferred the colorful and twinkling lights, and Lucas had to say she kind of had a point. After living in the glow of the city's 'magical' makeover for the last couple of months, going back to the 'normal' appearance felt just a bit disappointing in those first days and weeks. Marianne had been the one to help her little sister reconcile with this, sharing what their Granny Mel had told her when she was little.

"You wouldn't want them to be up all year long, Remy. They wouldn't be special anymore." Remy had looked like she wanted to argue this, but it was impossible. What Lucas remembered most of that moment was how Remy had turned her head to look at the picture of her grandmother, up there where it was still greeted every morning and night. They were coming up on another anniversary since Melinda had been lost, but she was still so remembered, so loved, so missed… Remy took those words and they comforted her. Now, driving home after that long night, Lucas took comfort in them, too. Whether or not it would do anything for the young horse born that day, he vowed to himself to tell her stories of her mother.

He wasn't surprised to find Maya waiting for him on the porch as he pulled up. She knew what had kept him, and the late hour was enough to fill in the blanks as to how it all turned out. She stood up when he came up the steps, and they embraced in silence. He was fortunate enough to say he hadn't seen very many of these losses over the years, most being brought on by age, really, but any loss, regardless of the details, was going to hit him deep, and so he was just as fortunate if not more so that, when he returned home, she would be right there to sit by him.

She wouldn't be alone in this either. Though every last one of them had been sent off to bed before he even got to leave the ranch, when Maya opened the door for the two of them to head back inside, they came upon everyone else who called this house their home, gathered over the couches in the living room. Maya's four siblings, her nephew, six daughters, one son, one Irish guest, all the dogs… All they were missing were the two birds, and they could just hear faint chirping from up the stairs.

"They couldn't sleep, okay?" MJ informed his sister and brother-in-law, holding his littlest niece in his arms, and the look on his face was priceless. How he could look like his childhood self and his father at the same time was a wonder, but here he was, valiant Uncle MJ looking after his nieces and nephew, and they loved him for it, same as the twins and Wyatt. They all needed to know what was going on back at the ranch, so the news was broken to them as gently as they could do it.

They had been prepared for the eventuality, as soon as it had become clear that this was a possibility, but that could only do so much, and now… now a horse that most of them had known for most if not all of their lives was gone. It was a difficult thing for them to process and they would need time. Lucas didn't have much that he could give them for comfort at the moment, but he gave what he had, which was that he had pictures of the newborn horse. The children crowded around him to see, and their love for the little thing was instant and heartwarming.

"What's her name?" Mackenzie asked.

"She doesn't have one yet," Lucas told her. "Sylvie thought we should wait until we know her better. That makes sense, right?" The girls nodded, but they all looked like they had ideas in mind already. He smiled. "What do you all think we should name her?"

Lucas and Maya had both expected there to be a sudden outburst of voices, putting in their pitch for the name, but instead the room became very quiet, the young blondes matching one another in the furrow of their brows. It wasn't as though they would decide that night, and if they all came up with different names then how would they decide? If the name they offered up did get picked, then it would belong to this young horse, and that was a big responsibility. No matter how old they all were, they understood that much. They wanted to get it right.

"Maybe Sylvie's right," Marianne finally spoke, and her sisters nodded at once. "We only saw pictures, and she was born just a couple hours ago." Silence fell again, only for a moment. "Can we go see her tomorrow?" Now her sisters found their voices again, crowding around their parents, asking and pleading for them to go to the ranch to see the foal.

"Tomorrow, sure, you can," Lucas agreed, and the girls could not have been more thrilled. "But first… first you all need to get back to bed, okay? You all get very grumpy when you don't have enough sleep," he pointed out.

"No idea where they get that from," Nellie joked, and Gracie, MJ, and Wyatt all snickered at their big sister's squint.

The children were escorted back to bed, new stories told to help the little ones go to sleep… Aubrey insisted on having her father sitting by her the whole time, and Lucas went gladly, letting the four-year-old curl up against him. Four and a half, he should say, shouldn't he? She wasn't about to let them forget. Between this and the knowledge that she would be turning five in just a few months…

"Daddy?" she quietly asked, looking one good tip of the head away from falling asleep.

"Yeah?" he asked back. He'd just been about to get up and leave her and her sisters be. Whatever she'd meant to ask him, sleep got her first. He kissed the side of her head and left the room after having done the same for Mackenzie and Marianne.

As tired as he'd been upon returning home, when it was finally just him and Maya again, he found that he couldn't go up to bed. He sat with his wife, and he shared the whole of the day's story, from when he'd been about to leave the first time to when he actually left, when all was said and done. As he shared that story, he thought about everyone who'd stood outside the stables, waiting to know, and he thought about how they weren't the only ones to have been invested in this tale. All of his friends, his fellow turtles, had been keeping up with it, too, and now he felt he had to tell them, too. Was it a little late at this point? Yes, but not so much that, given the circumstances, they couldn't reach out to any of them. By now, they had a system, making sure to show up online to let the others know when they were in the clear or not.

They called Riley and Dylan, finding them in the midst of dealing with soon-to-be four-year-old Aimee, who'd been sick earlier that evening and was now being impossible to get to bed, like she was afraid that it would happen again. The news was made that much more difficult for this, as they were already caught up in that situation, but they were happy for having been told. They would come and visit the young horse in the days to come, too. They got the same out of Zay and Nadine when they were called next. The two of them had been having a much quieter evening, where Zay had spent most of it going through his students' assignments and Nadine had been enjoying her day off from the hospital. Though she and Lucas had completely different kinds of patients, it did not change the fact that this had been a birth, and the outcome had been one of the worst either of them could be faced with. Nadine knew how much it would weigh on her friend, and Lucas appreciated this far more than he could ever tell her. He didn't have to say it. She knew, and she was there for him.

They called SCAR house, and they got the girls first, as the guys had their night of getting the kids off to bed and the twins had been on a hide and seek kick as of late. With the size of the old Zvolensky house, they had so many options for hiding places that rules had needed to be implemented as to where they could or couldn't hide. Even as they spoke with Sophie and Chiara, they would occasionally hear Asher and Ray in the midst of seeking Valentina and Santiago.

Both with the girls and then with the guys, once they had found the recently turned six-year-olds, the news of the evening's events was received with immediate compassion and regret for Lucas and everyone at the ranch. They wanted to know at once what would be done for the young horse. What would happen to her? Would she be alright? On this at least, Lucas could promise there would be no trouble. Already, she clearly had an abundance of people in the world wanting to be there for her and they would all be there to see to it that she had a thrilling and thriving life.

They took a chance on calling Farkle. Isadora was already offline, so it was possible he'd be joining her soon, and they could have waited, but they called him instead. When he picked up, he guessed the reason for the call almost at once. His son, Bertie, already turning thirteen the following month, was not exactly looking to become a doctor or a rider, but he had been fascinated with horses for most of his life, had been asking after the horses from the ranch as soon as he got to talk to his uncle Lucas for just as long, so he had been aware of all this, too. Farkle was not looking forward to telling him how this had gone.

There was even more to it than this, or it felt that way anyway, as their friend off in Dallas became quietly reflective on the other end of the line. It took Maya finally asking for the man who had once upon a time been one of her very best friends back in New York to speak up for him to do so. The words he shared at this were far from being those they would have either thought or wanted to hear, from him or any one of their friends.

Though they continued at the moment to live in the house together, Farkle and Isadora had essentially been separated for a time, keeping it quiet in hopes to… maybe find their way back to one another? To shield their daughter and son as they went through the season of the former's birthday and the latter's, with the holidays in between? In doing so, all they had really done was confirm that they no longer had together what they had once had, and there would be no getting it back. They hadn't told Ada or Bertie yet, the way he told it now, they might not have said it to anyone at all, period. But they had decided, somewhere about New Year's, that they were in agreement on this, for their sake and for their children's sake. They were filing for divorce, in the spring, in summer at the latest.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners