Chapter 14
Twenty-One

The box was waiting up in their room when Maya and Lucas came home from the hospital. With everything that had happened since she'd last seen it, Maya had completely forgotten about the presents from her siblings and their mother. And our father…

"I should call Abigail back, see if she's heard anything else, if she's on her way…"

"Sure… yeah…" Lucas replied. She turned back to look at him with a knowing smile.

"You're going to feel better if I sit over there and put my legs up, aren't you?"

"I mean, it can't hurt," he declared, going for an innocent face he didn't completely pull off. She went and stacked up her pillows before sitting on the bed. She let out a sigh as her back pressed into the pillows. Alright, fine, so she did kind of feel better.

"While we're at it, I'm kind of thirsty…" she told him, making something of a show of joining her hands over her belly and cranking up a bit of a grin.

"Play this up all you like, you relaxing relaxes me, so…" he told her as he headed out of the room.

"Maybe check on a dinner ETA while you're at it?" she called after him as she pulled out her phone.

She let out a breath, and another… Ever since Lucas had arrived back from Austin, it had been easier to let her mind wander back, away from everything earlier with her father, but then it would all roll back in and she would feel the way she did, sitting in the back of that ambulance, stressed and confused. It took her another minute, but she finally called Abigail again.

She had always gotten along very well with Kermit's wife. From the start, she had never questioned Maya's preferences where it came to her contact with her birth father – none at all – and instead focused on facilitating her children's contact with their older half-sister. Today was without a doubt the first time they'd had an actual conversation primarily regarding the man who connected their lives. Abigail gave her an overall rundown of the situation with Kermit's illness, until she had a much better idea of what had been going on all this time, including the one time where they had come close to losing him.

Lucas had returned with a glass of water and found her with a heavy look on her face, which he soon surmised to have been brought on by what Abigail was telling her. He sat on his side of the bed, facing her, and held on to the glass as she finished talking to the woman and finally hung up. She sat there quietly tracing her thumb along her darkened screen before reaching out for the water.

"What'd she say?" he asked.

"A lot," Maya frowned to herself. She drank down about half the glass before speaking again. "She's going to wait to hear more from the doctors before deciding what to do about flying out. She doesn't want to freak out the kids. They don't know except for Sam."

"Wow…" he sighed.

"Yeah," she bowed her head for a moment, thinking about those happy little faces. "He'll pull through though," she nodded, sounding to herself like she wasn't just trying to convince him or her siblings kept in the dark. "I don't… How am I supposed to feel about this?" she asked, looking back to Lucas. "After everything he's done… and not done, I…" she frowned.

But then she thought back to when they'd been in the ER, before the others had shown up, everything he'd told her. He was trying, he wanted to make amends, he recognized his faults… Dad…

"Whatever you feel, whatever you choose, that's the right one," Lucas offered.

"Great, I'll let you know as soon as I figure that one out," she closed her eyes, pinching at the bridge of her nose for a moment before opening her eyes again. She spotted the box, sitting right behind him. "Can you bring that over here," she pointed. He turned around and stood. When she set her glass on the night stand and crossed her legs, he set the box in front of her. Bringing her a pair of scissors, he sat back down and watched as she dragged the blade down the length of the tape and it split open.

"Hope nothing's damaged," he prodded the crushed corner.

"Oh…" she blinked. She hadn't even thought of that. Nothing I can do about that now… Taking in the various drawings though, recognizing each of her siblings' styles and preferences, she could sort of forget about that corner for a while. She just wished they could be here with her. Maybe they will be, if things get worse… But I'd prefer they didn't… "Woah…" she smiled, getting a look of the various wrapped packages inside the box.

"Someone drew a legend," Lucas pointed to one of the flaps. They looked to each other, and they nodded as they both thought it. Sam. Definitely Sam.

Sam. Cara. Sam & Cara. Eliza. Wyatt. Eliza & Wyatt. Mom. Mom…

"Dad," she read out, as her finger had reached the end of the line. She could see the corresponding box sitting right on top, and she picked it up, turned it in her hands and looked to Lucas. "He told me this would be in here." She looked back down to the small box, neatly wrapped in a bright and flowery paper. "I… I'll hold on to it for now. He's here, so… Maybe I'll open it when we see each other again." It was either that or maybe not actually opening it at all… She wasn't sure. So, for now, she set the present next to her water glass.

One by one she had pulled out and unwrapped the presents, giving no mind to the fact that her birthday wasn't for a few days still. She'd had a long day, and really her siblings would understand. Each time she picked something up both she and Lucas would look to see if the object looked to have suffered from the fall. So far, everything was coming out fine.

Maya smiled and wrapped the shawl given to her by Abigail around Lucas' shoulders before chuckling when she saw the DVD box set also from her… stepmother, technically? She gasped and laughed at the sight of the fluffy purple 'rock star' bunny from Wyatt, giving the stuffed little thing a quick squeeze before presenting it to Lucas. He smiled and held on to it as she kept going. The joint Eliza/Wyatt gift of a squishy ball would soon be passed to him, too, and he would keep on absently squishing it as this unboxing continued.

Eliza had also gifted her with some pencils and markers and notebooks, always appreciated. They had been on the opposite side of the box from the crushed corner, so there was less concern as to their possibly being damaged than the gift from Cara, which was found to have been well in the corner in question.

"Oh…" Maya breathed, noticing the tear in the paper and the corner of a metallic looking box peeking out of the tear. Ripping back the paper, the box was revealed to be shaped like a book, golden-edged. A History of New York. Cara and her love of boxes… "I think it's okay," she declared, inspecting the edges. There was the smallest of marks on the side which had hit the ground, but on the whole the box was fine. When she opened it, Maya found a thumb drive, nestled in paper. She held it up for Lucas to see what it said.

"Maya twenty-one," he read, smiling. "A song for you."

"Can you…" she pointed to the laptop on her desk, and he was already halfway up to go and get it for her. When he sat back the way he'd been sitting, she gave him a look like 'what are you doing?' before tipping her head to the spot next to her.

"Right, sorry," he came to sit next to her so they could watch together. After she'd connected the drive and pulled up the video which was the only thing on it, they were quickly treated to the appearance of Cara in all her glory. "She really looks so much like you sometimes."

"I know, she… oh!" Maya sat up and touched his arm when her sister held up a guitar and started to play.

"I didn't know she…"

"That makes two of us," she smiled, recognizing the song as one of TXNY's. This only went as far as the music though. The words had been rewritten, as Cara went about listing out the things she loved about her big sister.

Maya tried so hard to keep her emotions in check, which was easier said than done these days, but it would have been near impossible even without the pregnancy messing around with her not to tear up at Cara's composition. But then, somewhere in the middle of all this, the memory of their father out at the hospital came and wedged itself in, making Maya think about that little face and what would happen to it when her sister learned that their father was sick, and then her emotions took a sharp swerve.

"Hey, hey…" Lucas paused the video and put his arms around his bride to be.

"I'm okay, I'm just… I don't know anymore…" she cried. "I am no longer at the wheel of my emotions here, remember?" She tried to reassert herself, tried to ask herself why she should be upset over Kermit, after all he'd done, but that only made it worse. "I'll be fine," she finally said, which she guessed was more accurate than 'I'm okay,' because clearly she wasn't.

After she had managed to watch the rest of the video, still with Lucas' arm around her, she'd gone through the remainder of the presents in the box. These didn't spare her from a reprise, as she found the photo album compiled by Sam and Cara, filled cover to cover with pictures of her siblings from the time they'd been born up to now, including several images that featured her, in the time since she'd come into their lives. After that, she'd been treated by Sam's offering, which was a comic book he had created all on his own, featuring his ever-improving art and maybe a bit of calligraphic assistance from Cara.

"Nothing broken," Lucas declared, as the empty box was moved to the floor. Maya looked to the nightstand, the one unopened gift. She reached over and picked it up, turning it about in her hands. For such a small box, not even all that heavy, it felt as though it packed the biggest punch.

Even after she'd set it back on the nightstand, it felt like she couldn't stop looking at it, or reaching to hold it again. Finally, she'd put it in the drawer and gone back downstairs. They would be having dinner soon anyway.

They'd just finished eating when the doorbell rang and they were joined by Katy Hart. They were keeping Kermit overnight, though by all accounts he should be discharged in the morning. As Riley made Maya's mother a plate and brought it over, the woman turned to her daughter.

"If you need me to stay here tonight, I…"

"Only if you don't want to drive back tonight," Maya shook her head. It would have been easy to say otherwise. Her mother wouldn't have argued and she would have stayed, but if she was honest, Maya didn't need her to be there, now that things had calmed down, and she was thinking about her siblings, back in Austin, who'd be wondering where their mother was. So, after she'd eaten her late dinner, Katy had hugged her daughter and gotten back on the road, promising to let her know when she arrived.

Lucas had been concerned that Maya might not be able to sleep that night, but all in all she did drift off before he did. There was one point in the middle of the night where he woke up and found her awake already, holding what he could just make out to be her father's presents in her hands.

"This thing's straight out of the Telltale Heart without the murder part," she sighed, forcing herself to put it back and get back spoon-side in his arms. "Just knowing he's in the city right now, at the hospital, I just… I can't stop thinking about it, about… him."

The next morning, they woke up and almost immediately went about getting dressed, the better to go to the hospital and pick up Kermit when the time came. This didn't happen until just after lunch time, but when it did, they took off at once. He waited for them on his bed in the ER, dressed up and ready to go. He looked alright, all things considered, maybe a little tired, but as he'd just spent the night in the hospital, surrounded by constant noise, activity, and nurses checking on him, this was not so much of a surprise.

"We can drive you back to your hotel, if you want to get some rest," Maya offered as they got in the car. There was still this part somewhere in her that felt as though she needed to throw up a shield, to guard herself as he sat there, like at any moment he would do something and prove exactly why he couldn't be trusted. But then she'd look at him, and another part, the one governed by common sense and the things she saw with her own two eyes, said that despite all other indications… the truce should be allowed to hold.

"No, it's alright," Kermit told her. "Unless you'd prefer to…" he started to ask, and she realized it might have sounded like she was attempting to dodge having him at their house.

"No, it's alright," she cut in, taking a moment when she realized she'd repeated what he'd said, and in much the same tone, which made it plain that they were both of them feeling a bit all over the place about this conversation they were aiming to have. "Did you, uh… Did you talk to Abigail?"

"I did," he replied. "Soon as I feel up to flying again, I'll be heading back to New York."

Their roommates had cleared out after they'd been told that Kermit was coming out of the hospital and would be brought back to the house. It would be easier if they had the place to themselves, or that was what they hoped at least. When they did pull up to the house, Maya stole a brief look to Lucas, and he understood it well enough. She was nervous about what would happen, what would be said. He tipped his head to her, and she understood this, too. She wouldn't be on her own this time. Whether she wanted him in the room with her and her birth father or not, he would be nearby for whatever she needed after that.

Walking in, they were soon accosted by Trix and Lou, who crowded around Maya's feet before becoming aware of a stranger's presence. They seemed to appraise Kermit for a moment.

"Hey, I've heard about you two," he extended his hands to pet them both at once, smiling as they warmed up to him. The two of them were generally easy to please, but it still felt good to see them respond to him favorably. When they went to sit in the living room, the dogs were quick to climb up and sit near Maya. They'd been doing that more and more over the last few weeks.

"Can I bring you anything to drink… or eat?" Lucas asked, in what Maya would often refer to as 'the spectral presence of Melinda Friar.'

"That's alright, thanks. I was served lunch just before I called you," Kermit explained. Lucas turned to Maya, partly to see if she wanted anything, though mostly to see if she wanted him to stay or go.

"I'm good," she told him, with a discreet nod. Sit. So, he went to take a seat.

"The house is great," Kermit commented, looking around.

"Yeah, we really lucked out. There were five of us when we first moved in, now there's six of us with Chiara. Not sure what they'll do once Lucas and I move out at the end of the semester," Maya added, turning a look to her fiancé before addressing her father again. "We're moving back to Austin, to be closer to our parents when the baby comes." She was made momentarily conscious of the exclusion she'd created in saying this, as much as she was reminded that she wouldn't even have hesitated all of twenty-four hours ago.

"Your mom said you're due in June?" her father asked, looking in no way slighted.

"Yeah, June 11th," she told him, her hand going to her belly on reflex. "Lucas' mom already calls the baby her Junebug, we're not sure what she'll do if it comes a couple weeks early," she smiled, looking back to find him also biting back a laugh.

"You were early," Kermit recalled, regaining their attention.

"I was," she nodded. Her mother had told her as much once, when she'd inquired about the day when she was born.

"We both thought we were so ready, and then your mother went into labor, and suddenly we felt so out of our depth, just a couple of kids…" he chuckled for a moment, sobering again when the inevitable outcome of that happy day, his departure, his abandonment, trickled back into the memory. "But we loved you from the moment we first saw you."

The way he sat there, fussing with the end of the hospital bracelet still on his arm, she could feel the nerves coming off of him. Much as he looked ready to accept whatever she said or did in response to him, it didn't make him any less nervous. She made him nervous. And of all the impulses it could have created in her, the one that won out surprised her maybe most of all.

"You should stay here until you go back to New York," she told him. He blinked, looking back at her. She could feel Lucas giving her a surprised look of his own. "Instead of spending money on a hotel," she shrugged. "We don't really have a spare room, but the couch is pretty comfortable, or maybe Dylan would let you have his room."

"Maya, you don't have to…" he shook his head.

"No, but I want to," she insisted. "And then…" What she realized now was that she needed to do this. She needed to take a chance, foolish as it once might have seemed. She needed to be able to trust in people, in this case trust the feeling that he might really have made a turn. "Well, you could stick around until my birthday. We're not doing anything big, but you…"

"Missed a lot of them?" he offered, not as a joke but a fact.

"But you don't have to miss this one, if you want…"

"Wouldn't dream of it," Kermit replied, and he looked so happy inside, she had to smile.

When he excused himself to go to the bathroom, Maya and Lucas watched her father go before turning back to one another. She let out a breath and he moved to sit next to her.

"Are you sure about this?"

"It feels right," she told him. "I didn't think it would, but it does. I think… I need to see it through." He was looking at her with those Huckleberry eyes, and she knew what he was thinking. What if he pulled a fast one on her again, what if he hurt her again? "If he does anything to deserve it, I will let you go all Texas Friar on him," she promised, which just made him smile. "That's not the face, no one's going to be threatened by that," she scolded.

"Couldn't look mean right now if I tried," he told her.

"That just won't do," she shook her head with a smile.

X

To say that the next few days didn't feel very unusual would have been a bold-faced lie. For the first two or three of them, whenever any one of the six roommates would run into Kermit, it would be as though they had forgotten he was staying with them until that exact moment. When Maya had texted them, that first day, to tell them that he would be staying – not only in Houston but in their house – for the next few days, they'd all behaved like she was she was joking. Riley especially, in true oldest friend fashion, had wanted to know if she was really serious, suggesting she may have officially gone loopy.

Dylan had indeed given up his room to Kermit, and it would get to feel like they all had to be on their best behavior while he was there, sort of guarded… Maya and Lucas had their room right across the hall from him, which only made them extra aware all the time. Whenever Maya would step out in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, she'd find herself stopping in the hall, remembering who was in that other room…

Even though Kermit was staying with them, and even though both sides were stepping out of their comfort zones… or discomfort zones, maybe… there was still some difficulty, especially from Maya, to actually open up and share about this thing or that, about anything personal that was beyond the surface layer. They were definitely not at a stage yet where she felt she would hug him or let herself be hugged. She hadn't let him feel her bump either, and he hadn't asked if he could either, likely assuming she would have said no. Whether she would say no, that was something she didn't know herself.

On the night before her birthday, she'd gone up to her room to look for one of her textbooks, only to stop when she spotted her father sitting on the edge of Dylan's bed, paging through one of his comics with an amused look on his face. When he spotted her out of the corner of his eye and looked up, he showed her the comic book.

"I mentioned I was curious and he said to feel free and check them out. Used to spend… most of my money on these growing up. Stopped reading them for a while, until Sammy got me starting up again."

"That's funny, I don't remember any comic books in the apartment when I was little," Maya blinked. She could still remember that old apartment, in the back of her mind, sometimes so much clearer than she ever expected to.

"Yeah, well, I… I sold my collection," he admitted after a beat. "We needed the money," he shrugged. He didn't need to explain, she understood. He and her mother had needed it, for her, when she was little.

"Oh…" she briefly bowed her head. "Did you have a lot?"

"Put it this way, I had to talk my sister into making sure our parents didn't throw them out after your mother and I moved in together, because we didn't have the space."

His sister, his parents… My aunt, my grandparents… Thinking back, she had vague memories of a teenage girl hanging out with them sometimes, what was her name though? Was that her? As for grandparents, his parents… She didn't even have an inkling at the back of her mind.

"Did they ever… Did I ever…" She wasn't sure how to ask. He knew what she meant and he sighed, thinking back.

"No," he shook his head regretfully. "When they heard Katy was pregnant, I was as good as moved out. They weren't going to raise you for me, so if we were going to keep you, then it wouldn't be under their roof. Trust me, you didn't miss much." All of a sudden, he was getting to look a whole lot better by comparison.

"Are they still…"

"They moved down to Florida a few years back," he nodded. "If Luna hadn't told me, I wouldn't even know. Haven't spoken to them in seventeen years."

"Luna…" she repeated, blinking. "I remember her, she… she'd take me out for ice cream, like every day for weeks in a row, and she'd do up my hair," she touched her head.

"She worked at the ice cream parlor," her father informed her with a smirk. "She used all her freebies on you."

"After you left, she stopped coming, too," Maya told him as that came back to her, too.

"She was going away to college," Kermit told her. "And she did try to stay in touch for a while, but…" The way he hesitated to continue, she could guess. Her mother hadn't allowed it. If she was as upset as Maya knew her to have been, she could understand, with hindsight.

"And now?"

"Lives in Tucson with her girls," he pulled his phone from his pocket, found an image and held it out to her. The woman on picture had to be somewhere about early to mid thirties, and the family resemblance was absolutely there, in her and in the two small girls in the picture with her. "Ginny's six, and Sadie just turned three," he pointed them out. Her aunt, her cousins…

"Does she know I live out here? And about…" she looked down at herself.

"The where, yes, the baby, no. I'll give you her number though. She's been wanting to reach out for years, but well, the way things are between us, she didn't want to… intrude."

"That'd be great, thank you," Maya smiled, and Kermit smiled back. "I don't know how this is going to sound, but having you here these past few days, it… it hasn't sucked." He laughed.

"I can take that," he nodded. "Being here… has been everything I could never even have hoped for, and I… I really appreciate it," he vowed. She handed him back his phone as she went and sat next to him.

"Are you going to be okay to fly home after tomorrow? Because if you need a few more days, I mean…"

"Your friends have all been really nice to me, but I think Dylan deserves to have his bed back. And the other kids, they…" He caught the small smile on her face and gave a curious look.

"Nothing," she promised. It almost felt too cheesy to say that the way he'd fit her in as one of his, not just something separate, it had felt… kind of nice. "I should go, need to study a bit. Happy reading," she nodded to the comic books at his side.

"Thanks," he smiled.

The following morning, Maya was awakened by a ticklish sort of feeling. She opened her eyes to find Lucas attempting to ever so casually adorn her with a birthday tiara. He froze as she fixed him with a 'glare.'

"Come on, just give me that?" he showed her the tiara with the fuzzy yellow bits. She took it in her hands, looked at it for a moment, then reached up to slip it on to his head.

"Perfect," she smirked, bursting into giggles when he tipped his head back to see himself in the mirror on the closet door.

Kermit treated them to breakfast at the Nook that morning, Maya, and Lucas, and the rest of the roommates. It was the least he could do after they'd hosted him as they'd done. Maya found it hard not to chuckle at how Riley continued to appear hesitant to accept him as what he appeared, always ready to 'told-you-so' him the moment he'd make a turn, even though by now the rest of them looked in no way convinced that it would ever be the case.

They were expecting Katy and Shawn and the kids, along with the Friars, the Matthews, and several other guests later on, so, after they'd returned to the house, Maya had gone up to her nightstand and retrieved the wrapped present before going to find her father, down in the living room. She wanted a chance to see what was inside, with him, while the guests hadn't arrived yet. When he saw it in her hands, he sat up in wait. She undid the wrapping with some care, finding a small, worn box inside.

"Used to hide my money in that thing," Kermit told her. "There was a brick that came loose in our basement, the box fit inside…" Opening it up, she found a folded piece of paper. As she unfolded it out, she could see him staring at her. He hadn't expected to be sitting right next to her for this and it reignited his nerves.

I know I've given you plenty of reasons to want to forget the past, and I have plenty of my own to want to do the same. But there are also the parts I would hold on to forever.

She'd read it in her head, but she could sort of hear his voice at the same time. She didn't know that she'd have understood just how true those words could be if he hadn't been here with her over this week just past. Under the paper, she found another thumb drive.

"Just a few things I… I thought you might like to have. You can wait until after I'm gone to look, or you don't have to either, whatever you decide."

"Got it," she nodded before looked back into the box. She paused. There was one more thing in there, another box, small, velvety. And she knew it. The memory felt like something that would tumble free unexpectedly, after something else would come dislodged, and you'd go 'oh, so that's where that went.' She saw the velvet box and she knew what would be inside even before she opened it, which she did.

A silver guitar pick, mounted on a chain. There hadn't been a chain, or a hole to hold it, when she was little, but there had been the little thing, with its funny sort of whirly design on the front. Her father would keep it in the box like something precious, which she now realized it was. When she'd been four, five, six years old, she didn't know what fingerprints were, but now she did and, by the size of this one, she knew it was a child's fingerprint… hers… I didn't even remember you played guitar, like me.

"Spent some of my comic money on that," Kermit revealed. "Your mother was not happy when I told her about it, but when she saw it she changed her mind. She also convinced me not to sell my guitar."

"You went and had yourself a fancy pick made and you were going to sell your guitar?" Maya asked, bemused.

"That's what your mother told me," Kermit laughed. "I would have been glad to have that as a reminder," he pointed to the pick. Maya stared at it for a moment before reaching for the clasp and undoing it, refastening it around her neck, where it came to rest just below her engagement ring.

"Looks good, yeah?" she looked at him. He looked like he might cry, so he just nodded. She didn't have to think about it now. She reached over, and she embraced him, locking her arms around his neck. Surprised as he was, he didn't hesitate to reciprocate and close his arms around her waist. "Starting to think 'baby bump' has a double meaning," she joked, as her bump kept bumping into him.

"I told your mother the same thing twenty-one years ago."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners