A/N: [December 9th 2024]

December 9th 2023

Chapter 343
We Challenge Our Lucky Girl

Maya wished her mind wouldn't go back to that moment with this feeling as the headliner. She wished she could look back on the birth of her youngest daughter with the same happiness and lightheartedness as she could the ones who'd come before. Even with the triplets, who'd come into the world with risk, she'd had some level of understanding and expectations going into it. But with Aubrey… With her, it had all started normally, and then it had gone and turned so wrong so fast. All she could remember was being in that moment, in the hospital, and the slightest twinge of wrongness, and then… nothing. All she had was a void, and then she woke again to confusion, and heavy weariness turned to disbelieving relief. It had thrown those first few weeks of her lucky girl's life so far from what it had deserved to be, and she always hated that it always had to be that way.

They'd done their best to remedy that over the following years, and Aubrey was so happy and alive that they felt like they'd been doing it all right, and the past could stay in the past. She hadn't been the one to be in trouble back then though, Maya was, and as upset as she was for the narrative being stolen from her baby girl's infancy, she couldn't forget what it could all have become for Lucas and all of their daughters. They hadn't really told Aubrey about all of it, though over time there had definitely been some mentions. What she might have understood and what had actually been, those were two different things, and while they would want to make it clear at some point, for now…

For now, she was a young girl, sleeping in between her parents in their great big bed on the morning of her fifth birthday.

"Now when did you come along, huh?" Maya whispered as she looked to the small blonde curled up at her side, clinging to her in her sleep.

"I don't know, but she was there when I got up to go to the bathroom around two," Lucas whispered back, making her chuckle. He had that look to him as he gazed down at Aubrey with her, like he was thinking about her birth, too, only from his side of it. When she'd see him like that, she would this pull at her gut, like all she wanted was for him not to have gone through that. She thought about the girls, too, and the memories they had of it. Mackenzie had barely been a year old, she remembered nothing. The triplets had been two and a half, and she knew they barely had this vague notion of that time. Ella had been grown enough that she had no choice but to understand the risks, while Marianne six and a half… There was no forgetting it for her.

"Why does time have to go by so fast?" Maya hummed. Her fingers were practiced from years of delicately brushing at her children's faces, little hands, and feet, all without waking them, and they traced along Aubrey's features now, her last baby, the last one she'd carried in her own body. "It's not like I didn't know that sooner or later one of them would be the last, and pregnancy was definitely not without its curveballs, I just…" She paused, shook her head like the thought didn't need to go any further before looking back to Lucas.

"You just what?" he asked, his tone open, safe. Whatever she had to say, he wanted her to go ahead and say it if she wanted to.

"I don't know," she looked back to Aubrey, her fluttering lashes as she slept and dreamed. "Maybe I would have gone through it differently if I'd known for sure she'd be the last. You and me, we were all in for this big family we got, and then her birth was… what it was… and our plans kind of changed. Or maybe they didn't, maybe she would have been our last one anyway, until Ezra was left with us."

"She doesn't have to be," he spoke the thought out loud with a shrug. Maya looked at him. "We reversed my procedure for a reason, yeah?"

"We did," she agreed. "And nothing happened. Now you're forty, and I'll be forty in just over half a year… Who knows what might happen? I know I would be scared that it would go like last time, except this time I might not…"

They let the conversation trail off at that, didn't want to let their minds travel down that road and end up souring the day for themselves, especially as their birthday girl very soon opened her eyes.

"Hey, good morning," Lucas whispered, giving her forehead little scratches that made her giggle. "You know what today is?" he asked, and she nodded, pointed at herself.

"So you're the boss today, huh?" Maya asked her, and Aubrey beamed, nodded again. "Happy birthday, Boss Lucky," Maya hugged her and kissed the top of her head.

Their children were all their own people, and each year they got to add to their lives allowed them to evolve, to grow more than physically. As hard as it could get to see their children leave behind one stage of their development and then another, the compensation they got in return was more than enough. They got to see who they'd become. Marianne at eleven was far ahead of the others already, but then Kacey, Remy, and Lucy were just a few months shy of eight, and it was striking to watch them, not only developing as a unit but individuals, too. After them, the little sisters were not feeling nearly as little anymore, with Mackenzie recently six, and now Aubrey at five… Just behind them, the idea that their fairy boy Ezra was coming up on a year and a half…

This was Aubrey's day though, and she was five, as she'd let everybody know. She was just such a sweet little thing, with an easy smile and infectious energy. Of all of their girls, she reminded them most of Marianne, the more she grew, Marianne when she'd been her age. That didn't make them identical for the rest of it, and their likes and dislikes stood as some proof. Aubrey liked to draw as much as the next kid, but she didn't show the same artistic tendencies as her big sister had done early on. In time, she would show them who she was, and they were eager to learn it all.

"Can I get him?" Aubrey asked when she saw that her little brother was awake and pulling to climb his way out of the crib.

"Go for it," Lucas told her, and down she climbed before hurrying across the room. There was no denying she was pulling on the side of her roommates as far as height potential. She hadn't exactly gone through some growth spurt, but they would look at her there, helping Ezra down, and it would be striking just how much she'd stretched out. She safely got him down, after which she went and hoisted him up into her arms. It was an effort at her age, but she had him and he was safe, smiling at his big sister with still waking eyes.

"He's getting so big now," Aubrey reflected, and it made them laugh to hear how much she sounded like her Nana Katy when she said this, suggesting she'd heard the exact same thing from her.

"Yeah, that goes for the both of you," Maya pointed out. Aubrey liked the sound of that.

Before long, the youngest Friars were spirited away by their sisters. Both Maya and Lucas responded to this in the only correct way, which was to protest in somewhat exaggerated manner their regret at being excluded from whatever their girls might have had planned for the birthday girl. Was it playing a bit dirty, considering that Aubrey was both young enough and sweet enough as to see this and feel this was genuine, to feel that she could have been hurting her parents' feelings? They hammed it up as much as they needed to in order to make it very clear to her that they were joking… just a bit. They would of course love it if she stayed with them, but not so much as to keep her from playing with her sisters on her birthday.

"I'll be back, I promise," she went up and told them, taking one each of their hands, with so much earnestness in her eyes that her parents would later confess to one another how badly they had resisted breaking out in laughter… or tears… maybe a bit of both. "I'll play with you, too," she told them, and Marianne, Mackenzie, and Remy did laugh at this, while Kacey and Lucy just barely resisted. Ezra, left to stand again, looked between his sisters and his parents like he wasn't sure what was happening anymore.

"Alright, then, we'll wait for our turn, yeah?" Maya turned to Lucas.

"They did ask first," he told her, and they nodded to each other before turning to do the same with the children.

"Great, let's go!" Marianne led the way, and the others followed her at once, a rumble of steps letting their parents know they were heading down, and down again, to the basement.

They had the benefit at least that, while the girls were down below with Ezra, none of them got to realize they were expecting guests for breakfast. They arrived and were discovered once the meal was ready. Aubrey was beyond thrilled at the discovery of her eldest sister and her family. She was caught up in a big, big hug by Ella, who wished her baby sister the greatest of fifth birthdays, getting more of this from her one and only brother-in-law, and then her older niece, Tori. She got to be the one to lift up the next one when she greeted little Sunny, while she had to first sit down before she was allowed to receive baby Melly in her arms. It was a lot easier to look to the likes of her and understand that she was her aunt, but she was getting to put it together now with Tori, too, which continued to be very funny, about as much as the girl holding and saying hello to her Uncle EZ. They all sat to breakfast, Maya's siblings and little Finneas, the Munroe-Friars, everyone, and Boss Lucky looked like she could not stop smiling if she tried.

It was much more reasonable, with her being in preschool, for them to have arranged that Aubrey be picked up by her father before the day was done. She was thrilled to go, telling them as they walked to the car how she'd gotten her cake from Miss Alma and everything. It was legendary enough in the Friar household as to have been on par with where she was headed now, with her father. It was time for them to have their own birthday ice cream trip, and seeing her saucer-eyed giddiness as she went about deciding what she'd have… It was already a memory imprinted deep in her father's mind.

When they finally got their ice cream and were sitting across from one another, the discussion of her day at preschool very soon shifted toward what her evening would look like. She'd have her party over the weekend, but today her birthday coincided with the holding of the high school's art auction, and so they would be going out there, as they did every year. With her being out of preschool already, she would get to go early, to help along with her father and assist her mother in the preparations. She knew that they always ended up coming home with something, but as this time it was also her birthday, they wanted her to get to pick what they would bring home. She liked that challenge a lot, now at least. Later, when she'd be surrounded with all the options, she might not feel the same way.

"You can always ask the rest of us what we think," Lucas suggested. "We'll be happy to help."

"But I get to pick," Aubrey asked, making sure.

"You get to pick," Lucas nodded, and she smiled again.

Aubrey had a great afternoon overall. Everyone at the high school knew her, and on the whole they would be the kind to come around and offer her a happy birthday wish, sometimes a small gift that was received as though it was the very best thing ever… Eventually, she was reunited with her older sisters and her little brother, and she could not wait to tell them absolutely everything that she'd seen or done that day, especially from the moment their father had taken her out to ice cream and through the auction set-up. She also mentioned the fact that she was to go around and pick something and, when she mentioned that she'd already spotted a few interesting things, she took off with her sisters to go and have a look, leaving her brother behind but receiving zero complaints for it. Ezra was just happy to be with his mother again, in the school, which was getting to be familiar to him after his visits there had been getting more and more regular, whether at class time or beyond.

The girls were not yet through looking at all the pieces and deciding what they would like to take home by the time the students and the guests arrived for the auction.

Maybe the best part of Aubrey's birthday challenge came when the students got involved. Whether they had already known before or found out from word of mouth, it eventually became widely known that today was Aubrey Juliet Friar's birthday and she had been put in charge of picking the piece of art that her family would go about acquiring. Once they knew that, they started going up to their art teacher's young daughter and giving her their best sales pitch for why she should pick their work, leading her over to look at it and explain how they had made it and why. The pack of young blondes, six sisters and Shonagh together, followed along, looked and listened the way they might have done in a museum. Again and again they were guided through the gym, and they had the best of times. By the end of it, Aubrey had a lot of difficulty deciding, and she consulted with the others again, a good and concentrated huddle, while the students looked on, eager to see who would be the 'winner' of Aubrey's favor. Watching her walk back across the squeaky floor to inform her chosen artist, she might have been the most discerning judge on a reality show.

"We did tell her she was the boss today," Lucas told Maya with a smirk while MJ Hunter hoisted his niece on his shoulders in victory and let everyone know she'd picked him.

"We did that, yeah," Maya laughed. "And what a great leader she is."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners