A/N: [November 27th 2024]

November 27th 2023

Chapter 331
We Create in Past and Present

It was not a leap for the Friar girls to decide they wanted to have a project of their own once they found out that collab week was happening at the high school. It wasn't a leap, not a step or a stretch. It took all of a wiggle of a single toe in that direction to know that they would want to team up together, create something together without their mother or father seeing any part of it until it was completed. Less than an hour after they'd been told, at dinner with their parents, their older sister had very 'unexpectedly' appeared at their door with baby Melly in her car seat. The babe was happily collected by her grandparents, allowing her mother to join her sisters for a secret meeting, ending in what had to be a list of needed supplies she would go about acquiring and bringing back to them as soon as she could.

She had done this the next day, and ever since then – they'd had more time than the students, more than the week – they had been disappearing into the basement, where nothing short of a barrier had been erected to make sure they wouldn't see what the secret project was until the moment of the unveiling. Maya and Lucas didn't mind the wait. In true Friar fashion, the secret and the attempts to discover it were half the fun. The younger their girls got, the harder it seemed to become for them to grasp the difference between sincerity and play acting. Marianne understood they were just messing with them, as did the triplets… mostly. The little sisters did not get it so well, and any time their parents would approach 'discreetly' they would screech and insist they had to go away before they saw anything.

The teasing and playing around took a turn, this one evening, as a call came while the girls were down in their 'studio.' Maya and Lucas had been in the kitchen, using the opportunity to pick up after dinner, gearing up for bath and bedtime for the children, when the house phone rang. MJ was quick on the draw and answered it before anyone even had time to react, carrying Ezra around with all the ease of the great big brother and uncle he had been for the better part of his life.

"Oh, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it," he spoke, moments after answering, and Lucas and Maya turned to look at him, puzzled. He looked back at them and said the magic words: Priya was in labor, the baby was coming. It was fortunate for all of them that it was Friday evening, because of course they would have to go to the hospital and be there for Priya, for Teddy, for Lily, and the new baby about to be born… Secret art would have to take a pause.

There was some resistance at first about leaving the basement, even when they found out the reason. There was an offer to call up Missy Sanderson to look after them if they wanted to stay at home, but that had immediately bounced back into their true desire showing itself. Of course, they wanted to see the baby. So, they got into the minivan and off they went. Once they were on the road, it wasn't just the fact that they were on their way to meet Lily's baby sibling that had them excited. It was this trip, an unplanned outing in the evening, pushing back their bedtime… It was fun! And they got to see everyone at the hospital, their family… They could definitely forgive having to put a pause on their project for all that.

Lily was there, looking as giddy as she was nervous, now that she'd been parted from her mother and stepfather, but everyone who was there that evening was so good to her and made sure to focus on seeing her through the long wait with all the love that they had for her and her parents.

When they ended up seated together after settling in, doing their best to collectively put their son to sleep while his sisters were talking with the others around them, Lucas felt for the first time since they'd gotten the call that he was back on track with what the evening had been supposed to be for him, after what the day had already become for him. The plan had been to bring it up after they'd gotten the kids to bed, but the way they were headed now, by the time they would get the kids there, when they went home, they would want nothing more than to go to bed, too, and he would have missed his chance. Was he under any obligation to get into it now? Not at all. But he wanted to. He needed to share this with her.

"Got a call this morning, just after I got into the main office," he told her while he held Ezra's hand and his gaze, as the boy lay against his mother and looked at his father through increasingly sleepy eyes. Maya looked at him, too, so he'd go on and continue his story. "Remember how you said I should see about sending a few chapters in and get the ball rolling about getting the book published?" he asked her, and that was really all he needed to say for the pieces to connect, laser fast, one to the next and the next. Her eyes went wide, just a bit, because she was nothing if not a pro at keeping secrets contained, and this was very much what this was… for now. Yes, he had secured a deal for his second book, but this was first and foremost the day of the new Hart-Lane's birth, and that was what it would remain for everyone. Lucas and Maya would only have this secret, side bonus.

They weren't going to get ahead of themselves anyway. Yes, he had this deal, but that didn't mean that the book would be out in the world before they knew it. Lucas was still writing, and he was nowhere near the point where he could say that he had finished a first draft, or that he had polished it to the point of putting it into the hands of a printer. Until he got there, this deal only did so much. It motivated him… it terrified him… it reminded him that he had to keep going, but not nearly as much as the work that he'd been doing already could.

His favorite part remained the discoveries that he'd make as he continued his research in tandem to his writing. He had been filling in the blanks along the way, and it only got easier the further he went, until he more or less knew where to look all the time to further his knowledge. Once in a while though, something would come at him completely out of nowhere, and it would reframe some or a lot of what he'd known. There was this part of him that would worry sometimes that he'd come upon a bit of knowledge that he wouldn't know what to do with, but so far he had been able to maintain the image he'd had of his grandfather, the image he'd been bringing more and more into clarity. Marianne continued to be his partner in sleuthing along the way, and she continued to amaze him with everything she did. Lately, she'd been dropping hints that she was working to piece together something massive, and that she'd share it with him eventually. She wouldn't say what it was, but he had a feeling that she was holding on to it for a special occasion… like his fortieth birthday, just a month away.

For now, it was someone else's birthday, and the moment they had all been waiting for finally arrived. How many of their friends and family members had they watched return from the delivery room, forever altered by new parenthood to deliver the news of a birth? Seeing Teddy take that walk toward them, he was still so caught up in his own head that he almost walked right by the waiting room until several of them called out and made him turn. His face became a whole smile when he saw them, and he zeroed in on Lily, who bolted over to hug him. He lifted her right off the ground as he hugged her back, and when he set her down again, he bowed to speak at her ear, sharing the news with her first. Her excitement matched his, especially as he nodded to the others. Go on, tell them, this said, and Lily was so very happy to report the birth of her baby brother on this April night.

They would wait their turn on going in to meet the newborn and visit his mother. Some of the kids did not like the idea of waiting, especially as they were clearly one good eye blink away from falling asleep for the night, but their parents weren't about to break the new parents' wishes, so they moved immediately into 'crowd control' mode. They were practiced at this after all these years of parenting their growing bunch. The easiest way they could go about it right now was not just to tell them a story but instead to invite them to join in as they told a story, to the newly awakened Ezra. They could definitely do that, and it wouldn't at all put them asleep, because they were older. It all worked much better than even they seemed to realize. They were as pleased as any big sisters would be as they saw their baby brother drift back to sleep in their father's arms.

"Night, EZ," Aubrey lightly brushed at the back of his head. "You gotta sleep now, okay?" she further instructed him. She hummed a bit of lullaby that she knew, continued to lull Ezra to sleep.

"I think it's actually working, are you…" Lucas started to whisper before getting an array of blue eyes raised at him, topping fingers on lips: be quiet, you'll wake him. He raised his hand in quiet apology, and the girls went back to smiling to the now sleeping Ezra.

"Can we go yet?" Remy asked, and Maya and Lucas were contemplating having to come up with yet another tactic to hold them off, but thankfully they were called on in this moment to go and visit Priya and the baby. Everyone scrambled to get up at this, and the girls wanted only to get the gifts they'd had ready for this moment, so they might give them when they got to the room.

They had come so far from the days when Teddy had barely worked up the nerve to go and speak to the mystery girl he kept seeing through the window while he was at work. It wasn't as though they had never imagined him being a father, far from it, more like it hadn't occurred to them the way it might have done with some of the others, perhaps because he'd lived apart from them for a while. But then Lily had come into the picture and changed this perception before there'd been any concrete proof that she'd ever be that for him. And now there was this baby boy, this chunky little guy they fell in love with the moment they saw him.

"He's so cute!" Mackenzie remarked at once, while she and her sisters were making funny smiles at him. The boy was barely awake, but he seemed vaguely aware of them.

His name was Ryan James Hart-Lane. His first name had been a combination of elements in both Teddy and Priya's top choices, and they could not have come upon it in a better way. That was what he was, wasn't he? He was and would be a bit of both of them together, maybe even the best of them together.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners