Chapter 80
Sprout & Bee

It was a few hours before anyone was allowed through to the room to see Maya and the baby. She'd gone to sleep not long after they'd read the letter and discovered the name Kermit had offered up for their newborn son. As soon as they had seen it, Maya and Lucas both had felt this was exactly what his name was, this was Noah. Lucas held him while Maya slept, sometimes sitting, sometimes standing, slowly walking the length of the room.

All that time, looking at him, Lucas would marvel at how, even after having been a father for nearly a year already, his life so eternally changed for having Elliott in it, he couldn't help but look at Noah now and feel those same anxieties, about giving him the life he deserved, about seeing him happy and healthy and thriving. He didn't worry so much about what the next few weeks and months would look like, knowing things would be so much more complicated with a newborn and a one-year-old to look after, even as he was still in school, and Maya… Well, she'd have loads of support around her when he couldn't be there, so that was some comfort, right?

"What time is it?" Maya asked, signaling her waking. Lucas moved to look at his phone, sitting on a nearby table.

"Just after six," he told her before coming up to the bed. "I think he's getting hungry," he added as he passed her the baby.

"That makes two of us, but he'll get his turn first, huh?" she smiled. Noah had been fed once before she'd gone to sleep. All had gone well that time, and thankfully it did this time, too.

"I'll go find you something to eat," Lucas headed out to exit the room.

"Can you bring Elliott when you get back?" Maya looked back at him. "And some of the grandparents, too, whoever draws first position," she smirked.

"Will do," he laughed.

As it turned out, the search for food was a very short one. The waiting room had gained many more attendees in the time since he'd last been out there. It now had Zay and Nadine, who had apparently arrived just after he'd gone back to the room. It also had their friends out of Houston, specifically Riley, Dylan, Sophie, Chiara, Rosa, Willow, Bishop, and Kayla and Franny. And they'd brought lunch. This had been consumed long ago by now, but some of it remained, set aside for the new parents much as it would need to be warmed again. Seeing the people and the food, Lucas was as aware of how glad he was to see them as he was that he was as hungry as his wife. He'd been so focused on the baby and it hadn't been a problem, but now his stomach was howling for whatever it was that smelled so good in those bags.

"Hey, Dad man!" Dylan was on him for hugs before any of the others. Lucas had a feeling like he was trying to also include a bit of love from their friends far off in New York, especially Asher. "They said you guys had another boy?"

"Yeah," Lucas laughed as the others reacted to the confirmation.

From what he soon gathered, the others had tried not to tell them, so Lucas and Maya could give them the news personally, but then one of the kids had blabbed by accident. Lucas swore he caught a look on Riley's face like she might have been in the same camp as Nellie Hunter as far as what she'd envisioned her best friend's new baby would be. At least they didn't know his name yet, but then no one but Lucas and Maya and the late Kermit Hart had known this so far.

"Alright, you," Lucas smiled as he took his son… his older son… from his mother's arms. He was so utterly happy to have him back, and Elliott looked to share in this happiness for how he grabbed on to him and smiled as he did. Someone – if not Melinda Friar herself then one of the other grandparents, surely – had gotten a shirt on him, announcing to one and all that he was now a big brother. Lucas lightly poked at the boy's belly where the word brother stood in bright blue letters and Elliott giggled and wiggled, making him laugh, too. "Come on, got someone to introduce to you," Lucas rubbed at his back when he threw his short arms around his neck. "Who else is coming?" he looked to the others.

After the grandparents had exchanged looks, the decision had come down by the even louder input of the little Hunters, who wanted to see 'the baby nephew.' So, off they went, with Katy, Shawn, the twins, and MJ. Alex remained with Sam and the others. He was barely older than his new nephew. The little aunts and uncle who'd come along now were barely older than they'd been when they'd met their first nephew. The twins would be turning five in a few months' time, while MJ was coming on three and a half, the half having been elevated to great importance by his sisters. It continued to make the whole thing as surreal as it had been from the moment when they'd learned they'd be having this second baby when the first wouldn't have turned one yet.

"We can hold him, right?" Gracie was whispering to her father as they approached the room. Shawn had MJ in one arm as he led the girl by the hand, with Katy leading Nellie in the same way. "We know how."

"I know, you guys are pros with your baby brother," Shawn smiled down at her. He definitely had a bit of that pause in him, the same they'd have whenever they remembered how Katy's last pregnancy had started in the midst of Maya's first and ended in her second.

"Can they have a girl after that?" Nellie asked her mother, who shushed her even as it got Lucas chuckling. If/when they had another, for everyone's sake, he could only concentrate on having passed a birthday or two with each of their boys first. The rest was hardly up to them anyway.

Shawn reminded the kids to keep quiet before Lucas opened the door and led them inside. Maya looked up at once and, seeing who he'd brought, she was all smiles. She'd managed to sit herself up a bit more, the baby securely in the crook of one arm, suggesting she'd prepared for exactly what was about to happen. It was sort of weird to say it that way, but they'd essentially been training Elliott to be around a small baby by putting him in contact with his uncle Alex. He was six months old by now, technically closer to Elliott's age than Noah's, but he had always been smaller, and all in all it had helped to have the boys interact in this way. Now, of course, it would be a different sort of test, wouldn't it?

"Hey, Sprout," Maya felt a new flutter of emotion as she was reunited with her firstborn, her second awake and small in her arms. Lucas set Elliott next to her, where he wasted no time in pulling himself up closer to her and she put her free arm under him to help him along. "I missed you, too, I did," she told him, kissing his blond head. "Did you miss Mama too?" she asked.

It was not even in the way they'd been feeding him as many 'mama' and 'dada' to try and get him to say it back, but that was when he finally got on to say it, and thanks to Grandpa Shawn and his camera, capturing the first encounters, they had proof, right down to how everyone was forced to push down their reactions, so not to startle the baby.

For Maya, to hear him say it, today of all days, it was almost too much. She laughed, holding him closer still, piling on a few more kisses.

"Yeah, that's me, you nailed it, El," she sniffled, needing a moment to blink and remember what was going on around them, like the day hadn't been enough of a whirlwind. "And look… right here… this is your brother," she looked to the baby, who had been in no way bothered by the new arrivals and the added sounds. He might have been about to doze off, actually. "He used to be in my tummy, do you remember?" Maya asked Elliott, "Probably not, but that's okay. You guys get to grow up together. You won't even know he wasn't there before after a while."

Elliott could see the baby now, and he made a curious sound, spying the other boy's face in the bundle of his blanket. Whatever he may or may not have understood in that moment, he made a pleased noise, and that was good enough for the rest of them. Maya looked back to Lucas, and if anyone was going to have any feelings anywhere near her own in this moment, it would be him, as she sat here with both their boys in her arms.

"I can't see the baby," they heard one of the twins say then, and it brought them back to the present, to the hospital room and her family, who'd come to meet their new grandson, their new nephew. Soon, Katy and Shawn had Nellie and Gracie in their arms respectively, while Lucas hoisted up little MJ, so they could all see.

"Maya, he's beautiful…" Katy breathed, swatting at the tears in her eyes.

"What's his name?" MJ asked. It really was the big question at this point, wasn't it? Katy and Shawn were giving the impression that, while more patient about it than their young children, they were no less eager about finding out what they'd decided on.

"Well…" Lucas looked to the boy in his arms for a moment before turning to Maya, to see how she wanted to go about this.

"Hey, Dad, can I trade you a bee for a mouse?" she asked Shawn, smiling, especially for the brief sort of thrill that flashed across his eyes at the prospect of holding his new grandson.

"Is that alright with you, kid?" he turned to Gracie, who was very agreeable to going with her big sister. "Here, let's just put you down here, careful now," Shawn instructed the girl as he placed her on the bed, next to Maya. The camera went to Katy, then to Lucas, before Shawn could carefully take up the baby. He fussed for three seconds, tops. "Hey there, guy, look at you," he breathed.

"You know, my track record at making you cry is impeccable," Maya laughed. Shawn looked back at her, showing he was more than willing to be seen with tears in his eyes right about now. Oh, give it a minute, she thought before holding her hand out to her sister, who'd been sitting there on her knees, not daring to get too close. Whatever she understood of childbirth, she knew her sister had done something big and now she was tired, not to mention she was in a hospital bed, and those usually meant people were sick, didn't they? "Come here, Mouse-Mouse, it's alright." She scooted up now, until she could set her head at her big sister's shoulder.

Before they could tell the Hunters about the name, Lucas shared the tale of his discovery, and his decision to share this with Kermit before handing him the choice of what to name this grandson he would never meet. Even now, it brought those same emotions back to Maya, and for Katy and Shawn it was a new surprise, mixed with solemnity and lingering sorrow. Lucas told them about the letter and how he'd given it to Maya earlier. They would keep the words for themselves, but as to the name, of course…

"I think he would have understood if we decided it didn't feel right for us after all, but we only had to take one look and we knew he'd gotten it right…" Lucas told his in-laws.

"His name is Noah," Maya announced, thinking how she'd likely never say her son's name without thinking of her father… her fathers… "Noah Patrick Friar," she nodded.

The reaction in the kids went somewhere about 'oh, it's pretty, I like it.' To Katy and Shawn, it started out that way with the first name, and then when they heard the middle name… Katy's face became a whole smile, and Shawn… Oh, there were definitely more tears as he looked down to the newborn once again. Maybe he would recall the conversation where Kermit had managed to casually get him to reveal his own middle name. He hadn't thought much of it at the time, but for knowing the small but very important mission he'd been given… Now here was this boy, who shared his middle name, and anything from the reason to the fact of his having it would combine to leave him that much more beloved than he already was in his grandfather's eyes.

As the baby found himself traveling from his grandfather to his grandmother, to his aunts and his uncle, Maya and Lucas both had taken their chance at eating their dinner. Maya kept Elliott with her the whole time. It was very important, especially on this no doubt confusing first day, that he should never feel as though he was being sidelined or forgotten. It would be a very big learning curve for his mother and father to figure out how to keep both those boys feeling like they received the attention they deserved. But so long as they kept working at it, then they could feel they were on the right track, couldn't they? Elliott certainly looked happy as they sat the three of them together. They'd share little bits of their food with him, and Lucas was oh so 'casually' attempting to pull a 'dada' out of him. Even as she'd watch this with a very open grin, Maya had a thought of how they had not been so outwardly happy, all of them together, in the last few weeks, but it did not leave her at all upset, and instead she looked forward to seeing this happiness wave continue to gain ground.

The next to come along were Lucas' parents and his grandfather, and between seeing Thomas and Joseph Friar with a pair of ridiculous smiles on them and witnessing the steady emotional meltdown of Melinda Friar at meeting and eventually holding her new grandson… It was everything they could have predicted and hoped to see.

"Can you imagine, all my best boys in May," she declared as she held Noah and ever so gently brushed at the tuft of blond hair on his head. As both Maya and Lucas tried to keep from laughing, Pappy Joe clapped at his son's shoulder while Thomas cleared his throat. "Come now, Tom, you've only ever been a man to me," Melinda pointed out, and at this there really was no chance for her son and daughter-in-law to do anything less than quietly laugh to one another.

"I'll take it then," Thomas smirked.

The Friars gave way to the Harts in time, with Abigail and Elizabeth leading Sam, Cara, Eliza, and Wyatt into the room to meet their new nephew.

"You two," Lucas waved his young sisters-in-law forward with a smile. They came up, and he hugged them both together. "You did really good at the house earlier," he told them. "Couldn't have done it without you," he told them both, knowing they both could benefit from hearing it said, if for different reasons.

Cara had needed so much to make herself feel useful, as she'd done in the weeks since Kermit's passing, so it had been easy for Lucas to look at her and find a partner in getting them on the move when the time would come. She was spending so much of her days at their house that it was very likely she would have been there when Maya went into labor. And then Eliza, well…

He hadn't even registered the fact that she had broken her silence back at the house, with what her words had brought him to know, but it had dawned on him, later on, and when he'd told Maya about it, she'd shared her suspicions – more or less confirmed by Eliza herself – regarding the reason she'd stopped speaking. It had made a lot of sense, and it cast a new light on what she must have been experiencing, in these weeks when they had all worried for her so much.

"Hey, godfather boy, come say hello," Maya nodded to her brother. Sam came up to her bedside, looking upon the baby now back in her arms. He'd just woken up again before they came in, and he peacefully bore his passage from his mother's arms into those of the fourteen-year-old.

The day Maya and Lucas had told Sam they wanted him to be the baby's godfather, oh… It hadn't even come to them how much it could matter to him, especially in the middle of everything else that was happening in their lives. They'd known Kermit was on borrowed time by then, and Sam had slowly but surely been slipping into that headspace of showing himself responsible, looking after his younger siblings, and his nephew Elliott, too, whenever he was with him. Now, that he should be entrusted with this title, for this new niece or nephew coming along… There was no doubt that he would go above and beyond for this boy, in all the days of his life.

"This is Noah," Maya told him, smiling for the sight of her brother and her son together.

"Hey, Noah," Sam smiled down to the baby, finding his little hand and giving it a light shake.

On the flipside, when they had asked Nadine to be the Bee's godmother, it had been less about what it could mean for the future so much as a reflection of the past she and this baby's mother and father shared, and the long and everlasting friendship between them. There was little more for her to say except yes, of course she would.

"We almost didn't get here, I was studying, and I silenced my phone on reflex even though I wanted to keep it loud, just in case you called…" she was shaking her head now as she held her new godson and found she could not, would not stop smiling, under the spell of Noah Friar.

"I was helping her, so I did the same," Zay added, with Elliott in his arms, as though he and Nadine were about to compare which of them would be the best godparent to their respective Friar boy. Zay may have had almost a year on her, in which time Elliott had become absolutely crazy for his Uncle Zay, but given time, Auntie Nadine and Noah more than had it in them to become a fierce duo.

"You can't keep doing this to me, I get all emotional with these boys of yours," Riley looked like she might genuinely have had the vapors when she came and sat with her best friend and was handed Maya's newborn son.

"Are you sure? Because someone told me you might have preferred this one was a girl," Maya teased her, resting her head at Riley's shoulder as she looked to Noah in her arms.

"I don't know what you're talking about, no take backs, look how cute he is," Riley innocently declared, stroking at Noah's cheek with her finger.

"No, of course, I must have misheard."

"Well, you did have a baby today, you must be really tired."

"Yes, I'm sure that's it."

By the time they were left to themselves again, just Maya, Lucas, Elliott, and Noah, it was getting late. They'd be spending the night here, very likely going home the next afternoon, the one the day after that at the latest. If this was anything like the year before, with Elliott, then they were going to try and make the most of their time here, before their return home dropped them officially and unceremoniously back into the land of sleepless nights and crying babies. There was no telling what this would look like, with both boys, but they were as ready as they could ever expect to be.

"See, this right here? This is going to be what we aspire for," Maya whispered as she and Lucas sat side by side in her bed, him with Elliott, her with Noah, and both boys sleeping soundly.

"Now we have proof that it's possible," he whispered back with a nod and a smile. "If we ever get so tired that we think this was just a fever dream or something like that." She reined in her urge to laugh, instead basking in the image of their sleeping sons.

"If I don't get a chance to shop or anything…"

"Yes, this counts as a birthday present," Lucas promised, turning his head to kiss the top of hers. "Early almost two weeks, but I'm not complaining."

"I had it wrapped until this morning," she joked, before the memory of the morning left her to wonder. "What are you going to do about your finals?"

"My very best," he assured her, and that was as good as an invitation to chase the thought away before it had time to settle in. They had something so much better to think about now. "He's going to need some leaves," Lucas told her, and Maya smiled.

"He'll have them, both trees."TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners