Chapter 92
Top of the World

November 2024

Of all the things they could have been doing, on the last day living at the elder Friars' home, contemplating the possibility that they might have slipped and ended up pregnant again when they weren't supposed to was very far from the one they would have wanted. But then Maya had woken up and started going about her day, and something had felt so strange… strange but familiar, that there didn't seem to be any other answer.

It had been a very sort of unsettling instance. It wasn't as though they didn't want more children, they'd talked it all out, made a plan… And that was just that, wasn't it? They weren't looking to get pregnant again for a year or so, and if they were now, well there'd be no way around it, not for them, they'd just be having another baby. Except now, after the surprise of Noah and everything following Kermit's passing, this was finally supposed to be Maya's shot at getting back on track, lining up her future. She'd re-applied, she was supposed to get back into school, here in Austin. She was waiting on her answer and it should have been arriving any day now…

"I need to go somewhere real quick. You're staying here with the boys, right?" she asked Lucas, hurrying to get herself dressed to go.

"Uh, yeah, but… Hey, what's going on, where are you going?" he asked, following her progress around the room with deep curiosity. Her whole vibe right now just screamed that something was wrong, and he couldn't just not know about it.

"Well…" she stopped and turned back toward him. She didn't debate long whether or not to tell him. He deserved to know and she deserved not to be freaking out on her own. "I need to go and see about whether I'm just off my game right now or if we're just too fertile for our own good." The way his face shifted, he had caught up very easily to where her head was at. "Yeah…" she sighed, grabbing her hoodie. Actually, it belonged to him, back when they'd been in high school, but ever since she'd found it here, she'd more or less taken it for keeps and wore it all the time. Lucas fully appreciated it, though right about now he was more concerned with what she'd said.

"How sure are you?" he stood, Noah perched in one arm while Elliott climbed himself down from the bed and teetered off toward his mother. Maya picked him up almost on reflex.

"Honestly, fifty-fifty at this point," she shook her head. She looked to their eldest son, coming on a year and a half and, if this test was positive… She didn't want to be upset about the idea of more like him, like Noah, but right now…

"I can come with you…" Lucas offered, but she declined.

"If it's negative, no one has to know, and it'll throw your parents off the scent if you just stay here. I'll call you when I have the test, alright?" It was just what she had to do.

So, she went, and Lucas stayed, joining his father and mother in leading the boys through some games and story time. Melinda especially was very invested on finding some good educational games and toys for her grandsons, and with the sheer number she'd gotten her hands on already, some of them still beyond Elliott and Noah's age groups, it was a wonder she had not exhausted the selection… or the space. She'd already been gifting some of them to her son and daughter-in-law before the two of them had come to live here temporarily, but now that they were all in the same place, she'd gone just a bit overboard. If nothing else, right now, it helped to keep them occupied and distracted from wherever Maya had gone.

"Hey… No, we're just playing this… Wait, hang on." With his phone balanced between head and shoulder, he lifted up Noah in the long practiced 'have you left me a surprise' move, sniffing in the general area of his diaper. "Gotta change him," he told his parents and carried the six-month-old from the living room and up the stairs before anyone had time to offer to do it for him or anything.

"Are you actually going to change him?" Maya's voice asked, coming from the phone.

"I'll just say he didn't actually need it. Where are you?" he asked back. He could hear noises, suggesting she might have been in the process of opening the box and its contents.

"Bathroom at Nando's," she informed him. "Whatever this thing says, I think some of those potatoes of his are going to make me feel better." She was nervous, he could tell, and now that he was on his own… mostly on his own… he was right there with her. He'd shut his door, set Noah down in the bassinet, and now he was pacing the floor, waiting. "I bought two. Only taking the one now, but I'm not taking any chances."

"No, yeah," Lucas agreed. For a long while, they stayed on the line together but neither one of them said a word. She'd taken the test, and now they were just waiting.

"It…"

"What?" Lucas asked, stopping. "What does it say?"

"Negative," she replied, and he could hear it in her voice, how she was as awkwardly relieved as he was. "I'll wait a week and take the other one maybe, just in case. Or I'm really not pregnant, and I just… completely misread the situation."

"Do you think maybe you're just nervous about… moving back home, and the university?"

"Probably… yeah…" she breathed after a few seconds. "I'm coming back, just need to clean up here and grab those potatoes. We'll get started on packing everything."

"Hey…" Lucas spoke before she could hang up.

"I'm alright, and I love you, too," she spoke, and he could hear the smile in her voice. She knew exactly what he'd been about to say.

If his parents caught on to anything about this morning, they never said anything. Lucas was more or less certain that their impending return home – and thus away from her – had managed to obscure anything else out of his mother's usually near omniscient outlook. This had been great for her, having them all at the house the last several weeks. She got to have her son and daughter-in-law and her grandsons to look after, her father-in-law as well. Now they were all going away again.

She'd already gotten more than she might have done. After originally planning to return to live at home once the actual structure was completed, even as the last steps were still underway, they'd decided to stick around at the elder Friars' house until they were all good and done with the attic and everything else, and all that remained was to put everything back that they'd had to move. Lucas would say how floating the original idea had enabled them to have this change of mind act like a gift to his parents. It was undoubtedly received in this way.

"Hey," Lucas went and met Maya outside as she returned, the better to take a moment and hold her in his arms, expelling what would remain of the events back at the diner. She held him back, breathing deep, and when he thought he heard her chuckle, he had to ask.

"It's nothing, I just smelled… the potatoes," she explained, holding up the bag, and he laughed. "It's fine," she promised. "Might have to put that on the docket for my next session with Doctor Eisley, but for now it's in the past, okay?"

"Okay. Come on, I'd say we need to go in before these things get cold, but I know you love them that way, too."

"I really do…"

Packing up for their return home didn't feel like it should have taken so long as it did. Sure, they'd been here for weeks, but they hadn't brought that much of their belongings, had they? Alright, so three adults and two small children did start to add up after a while, but still. Eventually, they did come to the conclusion that maybe this had to do with what they'd brought, yes, but then also what had been added to their load over time, between their own purchases and the acquisitions of eager and generous grandparents. At least not all of the games and toys were coming with them. Pappy Joe had helped them with that one, pointing out to his daughter-in-law how they would benefit from retaining some items, in such a great selection, for when Elliott and Noah would be over for a visit.

"What are we going to do about this?" Lucas whispered, nodding to the bed. Maya looked over from where she'd been crouched on the floor, sorting through small shirts and onesies. The boys were asleep, Elliott holding his little brother and Noah giving no mind to how his big brother was not that much bigger than him, for how he clung to him as he might anyone.

Maya saw them, and it made her heart feel warmed in such a way that she might have cried. Instead, she reached for her camera, snapping a few silent shots before suggesting Lucas go and get his parents and grandfather; they'd love to see it, too. He nodded, smiling, and moved out of the room. As she waited, Maya could only look upon her sons, her precious boys. What are we going to do about this? That was the big question, one they'd been left to consider for weeks, for seeing how attached the two of them had gotten and what it could mean once they were back home, with one boy in the nursery and the other across the hall. It wasn't like it was a bad thing, was it? They were brothers, and they were bonding. They'd figure it out. It would be easier once they were back at the house.

Oh, her boys… They were both growing up so fast, weren't they? Not so long ago, there'd only been the one, barely a little flutter in her belly, and now… It was all for the better that the test had been negative today, and now that this was the case, she could look at the whole thing and think how she would have welcomed another little guy into that pack of theirs, or even one little girl, to tip the scales a bit, even if it would mean another spin through the pregnancy rollercoaster, when it hadn't been all that long since her precious ride. But it wasn't happening, and it shouldn't be, not now, and that was fine. She had Elliott, she had Noah, and that was good.

"Oh… look at them…" Melinda's whisper was loaded with emotions as she came along and discovered her grandsons' sleeping hold. Possibly, with all of them headed home the next day, this might have been as much a gift as a curse, making her wish they didn't have to leave.

"I've got pictures," Maya promised her.

"Good, good," Melinda reached back to squeeze her hand, smiling, before looking back to the boys, two blond heads together. Lucas was getting a look of both his father and grandfather looking on, too, and they each had a look about them like they were in another place in their minds, and he wished he knew what they were thinking. Was his father thinking of him as a child? Was his grandfather thinking of his own children, here and gone?

The packing carried on and was completed at last, leaving them free to enjoy this last dinner and evening with Thomas and Melinda before they all went off to bed. They wanted to get going after breakfast the next morning. It wasn't as though they were taking off on a long journey, no longer than a usual drive from their home to the house on the lane, but they wanted to get there. They wanted to get in, and unpack, and put everything back where it belonged… and they wanted to see what the attic looked like, now that it was completed.

Lucas had seen it, here and there throughout the process, but Maya had purposefully kept away, so she might be surprised with the end result. That meant that she hadn't set her eyes on their house in all these weeks, so it was easy to guess how excited she was to be returning, beyond just getting to see the work. Without telling her any of the details, she knew from Lucas that all of it was going well. He would have told her, intentionally or not, if there had been trouble. There hadn't been though, so now she really just needed to see it.

"You guys want to come with us? See the attic?" Lucas asked his parents, after they'd finished buckling the boys into their seats.

"Yes, come," Maya jumped in at once. "After everything we did, dinner would be the least we can do. Please?" she smiled.

Soon, they were all on their way. Pappy Joe sat in the back and kept an eye on the boys, which mostly involved retrieving and returning Opie Bunny and his new counterpart if they ever ended up falling from the boys' hands. Noah was now the proud supporter of one TumTum Teddy, thus named for how the six-month-old kept poking at the bear's front, specifically the light blue star on its tummy. It sat tucked next to him in his seat, and he would turn his head at times, and he'd try to grab it, and sometimes it would tumble free, causing a fretful response soon remedied by his great grandfather.

"I'm closing my eyes now," Maya informed Lucas, as they were turning on to the road that would lead past the Sanderson farm, past the Oswalds', until they reached their house.

"Want me to tell you when we get there?" Lucas asked with a smirk.

"No, no, I'll know when we turn," Maya promised.

"Right, of course," Lucas nodded.

For having been back a number of times, for having seen it all come together, it still struck him to come along and see their house out there, standing notably taller than it once did. Even he had grown up with that image so present in his head the way it used to be, he wasn't so thrown by the new image, and she hoped Maya wouldn't be either, but even more so for his grandfather, whose house it had been long before he even existed, and for his father, who had grown up there from birth until he'd moved out for college. He also thought about how Elliott and Noah would not remember the way it had been before, and he couldn't help but think how he liked that, liked it just being what they knew.

When the minivan turned from the road and past the mailbox, Maya finally opened her eyes again, the better to take in the effect of the house with its new attic. She gasped, and the way she immediately gave off kid-at-Christmas vibes, Lucas was pleased to know she liked what she saw. As much as the weeks spent at his parents' house had been occasionally challenging, this right here made it worth all that. And she hadn't even seen the inside part.

"Is it weird that I'm nervous right now?" Maya asked as she got Noah from the back. Lucas had already gotten Elliott out, and he definitely looked excited to be back here again, enough that he was set on his feet even as his father kept a close eye on him.

"Not at all," Lucas promised her. "But you don't have to be," he added.

She knew well enough not to worry whether he spoke true or not. They headed up, with Lucas scooping Elliott up from under his arms and flying him up to the porch, making him laugh before regaining his feet and being helped over the threshold. The house looked about the way they'd left it. There were no signs of the work, certainly not down here, except in the items they'd brought from above when they'd needed to prepare for the start of the work. These would be put back in their places today.

From here, the first sign of the change wasn't so much in what they saw but what they smelled. There was that scent of just… paint, and materials, the way they'd find it when something was brand new to the space. They went up the stairs, all seven of them, everyone but the boys of course spying the trap door in the ceiling. Everything was good and clean up here, which made it look as though the thing overhead had always been there.

"Maybe we should move out of the way when whoever opens it," Melinda spoke up, looking to the boys especially.

"Yeah, let's do that," Maya replied, even as Lucas did, which made them smile to one another. It was as much for Melinda as for their own nerves, admittedly. So, Thomas took hold of his first grandson, who welcomed this by settling in against his shoulder.

Lucas insisted for Pappy Joe to get to pull the trap down the first time. The attic had been his project before it was any of theirs, years ago, only halted and left abandoned after the death of his Annabeth. This was for all of them, but right now it had to be for him… for her. They could just see it in his eyes, in the breath he took before giving the careful pull that brought the steps shuffling down to finally settle on the hallway floor.

They went up in turns, rather than to overwhelm the steps. The attic was on the whole empty at this point, which likely contributed most of all in making the place feel enormous. This, coupled with freshly painted walls, the light colored flooring, and the morning sun streaming through the windows and the skylight – they had a skylight! – left Maya to feel like they were all standing in midair, or on a cloud, or a mountain at the top of the world. It was a brand-new piece of their home, and right now it was just waiting for them to make it a part of their home.

They decided to pull the trap shut about as soon as they discovered how much Elliott enjoyed walking and running around this place, especially if there was someone to chase him. Watching him go was easily one of Maya's favorite moments of this day, this discovery. As to the others… There was the finding of the skylight, which had been a suggestion both she and Shawn had brought up upon looking at the designs for the first time, which had been a satisfying bit of 'great minds think alike. Then, there were the other windows, and getting to catch the view from each side. And then there was the canvas… Her great big canvas, bought at the mall with Ariel, before this all started. It had been brought up here, and it sat upright against one of the walls, waiting for her. She could almost feel it now, the image that was waiting to find its way out of her mind and on to the blank surface. She couldn't wait to start.

The painting would be for another day. Right now, there was so much for them to do. As strange as it could sound, as they moved out of the attic and through the house, it felt at once like they had been gone for a long time, which they had, and like they had never left. It hit in particular when Maya and Lucas got to step back into their own room, and then the nursery across the hall, and they got to see their trees. Both of them had been protected against any potential damage when the work had been going on, but Lucas had made sure to set everything back as it should be before Maya would come back.

By the time dinner rolled around, bags had been unpacked and everything else had been returned where it belonged. The family ate together, as it had done for weeks now, back at the elder Friars' home, before these two were left to say goodnight to Maya, Lucas, Pappy Joe, and the boys. Pappy Joe soon headed up to his room after this, and Maya and Lucas took the boys up not long after. Right away, they were left with that old conundrum, though they wouldn't let it be one, not tonight. They would do as they had done for the last stretch of their stay with Thomas and Melinda, keeping both boys in the bed with them, between them.

In the morning, waking up back in their own room and their own bed, with their boys, they thought for sure this would be about as good as the day would get, because how could that not be?

It was Monday now, and Lucas was soon off to the university for his classes, while Maya and Pappy Joe went about finding their home routine again, after having developed a new one over at Thomas and Melinda's house. Some of it was not so different. Pappy Joe did love his regular television time with his watch buddies. He'd have them both his lap now, and they would be as content and peaceful as any six and eighteen-month-old boys had ever been.

Maya, for her part, was left to happily see about what remained in the way of dusting, and cleaning, and finding needs around the house after having been gone for as long as they'd done. She was down in the basement, contemplating the need for more laundry detergent, when she thought she spotted the mailman's truck through one of the windows. A moment later, she was bolting up the stairs.

"Where are you going?" Pappy Joe asked with a laugh as she hurried past.

"Mail!" she could only call back.

She didn't know for sure, but something in her felt like this would be the time. Call it her gut, call it 'the date is about right,' whatever it was, but she got to the mailbox and flipped it open. Right there, the envelope stood out, taller than the rest, and it felt like Maya needed to close her lips around her breath before it could get away from her.

She could have waited until later, or even until she'd gone back into the house, but she knew it was no use. She needed to know or else her heart would burst from waiting any longer. She took the envelope, tore the side open and fished out the papers, turning them around, unfolding them… Her eyes found the words they needed to find, and her worries went away like so much vapor, leaving her to breathe, and laugh, and hop around. For a girl who'd once looked to school with so much dread, now the prospect of returning to class in January, officially, had her feeling so relieved and elated that she ran back for the house only to remember there was more mail. So, she doubled back, got the other envelopes, shut the mailbox, and dashed back to the house to show Pappy Joe.

Seeing him there now, with the boys, oh… There was a pinch there in her chest, remembering that her going back to school would mean that she wouldn't be spending her days with them near as much as she did now, but… she had to. She would finish her degree, and after that, well… Who knew what would happen, but she'd be ready for it.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners