Chapter 147
From The Mind Of

Jamie Friar was a little over a week old. He was, on the whole, what he'd been perceived at from the day he was born. He was an easy baby… mostly. When he was feeling alright, and that was… a good seventy-five percent of the time… then he was an angel. But if they did happen to fall into that last quarter, then… all bets were off. Could he be calmed down again easy enough, most of the time? Maybe. But then there'd be the other times… the ones where peace was something long fought for and hard to gain. And those, almost exclusively, came in the middle of the night, when all was quiet, and the house was dark. It wasn't as though this was their first time dealing with a newborn baby who wasn't sleeping his nights. They could both remember what it was like, being brand new parents, figuring things out with Elliott, only to crank up to the next level a year later, adding Noah into the mix when their first son was still small. It really wasn't all that long ago, so it wasn't like they'd forgotten… and yet, here they were, back sleepless nights and days fueled by whatever amount of energy they'd managed to stash away.

It was rough at times, they couldn't deny it, though by now their past experiences left them with a sense of 'we just have to get through it, this will pass.' If they ever needed a reminder, they only had to look down at their new son, all small and precious in their arms, or in his crib, or with his brothers… After that, they'd just take a deep breath, and they would carry on.

"I can go…" Lucas mumbled, after they were both awakened by the sound of the baby's cry, coming from the crib in the corner of their room.

"Yeah, not this time," Maya stalled him before he could sit up all the way and leaned to kiss his cheek, encouraging him to stay where he was. "Unfortunately, what he needs right now, you don't have," she whispered. He made a noise she interpreted as 'oh, is it that time?' and she had to snort. She got up out of the bed and trailed over to the crib. "Hey there, tadpole… hey…" she pulled the crying boy into her arms and brought him back so she might sit with him. A few moments later, the cries faded and then were gone, bringing back something of peace into the room. "There we go…" Maya hummed. After a moment, she turned her eyes to the side. "Everything's handled, just shut your eyes," she quietly insisted.

"I'm just making sure you don't doze off right here," Lucas shrugged.

"That was one time…" Maya shook her head with an exaggerated sigh, which made him laugh. "Can't take the supportive out of the Huckleberry, can I?"

"You really can't," he agreed.

"Okay, fine, but just talk about… something, anything, yeah? It'll feel weird if we're just sitting here in silence both of us, waiting…" Maya 'pleaded,' and Lucas considered her request with a slow nod before stopping and looking at her. He'd thought of something.

"You know, the day Jamie was born, before you called, my dad and I were talking about the ranch."

"Yeah?" she asked, nodding for him to go on.

"It's been going through my head for a while, wanting to get involved out there, I just never got the chance to really stop and consider what I wanted to do, and if I'm going to go to Juliet about anything, I want to be able to show that I'm serious. We were just starting to discuss options and…"

"And then… surprise?" Maya guessed, smiling down to their son.

"Yeah… And since then, it's sort of fallen way back to the back of my mind again, because there hasn't really been time to think it through."

"Imagine that…" she slowly nodded. "Alright, well… What were you thinking before?" she asked as he now sat up properly at her side.

"We really hadn't gotten far enough that I had an idea or even anything that could become an idea, and after that, well, everything…" he mimed something leaving his head.

"Understandable. So, okay… Tell me now, what's the plan?"

"There's no… plan, I just… Ever since I started going back, I've been thinking about my grandmother, thinking about what I was going to be doing with my life before our plans changed. That all came from her, you know…"

"I know," Maya nodded.

"I told her I would be a vet, and… maybe I would have wanted to be a vet, working out at the ranch…" He let out a breath, his thoughts seeming to coalesce into an image of Marianne Sullivan just as he remembered her, when he'd been a child. "And even if I'm not going to be a vet anymore, I still just have this feeling in me like that's the place where I'm supposed to be, or least to be involved, obviously, I'm not saying I'd give up on working with my father." She nodded again, keeping quiet so not to interrupt his train of thought, should he find his way aboard. "If I do this though, I would like to feel like it means something, like I'm actually involved. That means I'm essentially going to be pitching some kind of position for myself… a paid one, just…" He was losing his thread; he could feel it. He turned his eyes up to her, a silent plea for a nudge. Maya took a breath, carefully adjusting her position without disrupting Jamie too much.

"Okay…" she thought for a moment. "What does the ranch mean to you?" Lucas considered the question, though it didn't take him so long to think of something to say.

"It's always been just… family," he shook his head. "More than anything, it was my grandparents. Granny Emm, Grandpa Jax… They're still who I think about the most when I think of the place, enough that, when they were both gone, I… I couldn't go back, for so, so long. And now… Now I wish I'd never left it. I never want to do that again. I want the boys to know Sullivan Stables, to grow with it. It's part of them, too, as much as it's part of me."

"It is," Maya smiled down to Jamie and back to Lucas. "And they will know it," she vowed. "I've never ridden a horse before…" she stated, ponderingly, which made him grin.

"We can fix that someday," he told her, and she agreed on 'someday.' Lucas let out a breath. He was nowhere nearer to some big revelation, and they could both see it.

"Alright, look," Maya took the reins again. "Maybe… you don't need to figure that out just yet. For now, can't you just go to Juliet and tell her that you'd like to… help out around the ranch from time to time, doing… whatever you might be able to do out there. The important part is that you get to spend some time over there, to exist in that space, and once you do that, well… You might get a sudden and very brilliant idea about what you're meant to do there. Then, you can continue to work with your father, and you can be at the ranch… And because you're you, I feel very strongly that… You will figure this out. And in the meantime, you'll have Elliott, and Noah, and Jamie, and me… Two parts chaos, two parts exhaustion, one part… diapers… So, so many diapers, my dude…" she shook her head at the baby, completely oblivious to his mother's words or to both of his parents' amused faces.

"I think that might be the best way to go," Lucas finally stated, and Maya was glad to hear it. When he yawned, she gave him a look. "I'm good," he insisted. "You two aren't done, I'm not done. What about you?" he asked, fishing for a moment. "Patty's thing that she wanted your help," he pointed to her, showing how his search had not been in vain. Maya didn't know whether to shake her head at him or laugh. She would say that she landed somewhere in the middle. Finally, she let out a breath and replied.

"I haven't mentioned it and neither has she, not since Jamie was born but, to be fair, did just have a baby." He silently nodded, leaving her the floor as she'd left it to him before. "There's not a rush of any kind, not from or for either of us, it's all very much on our own terms and our own time, at least for now and… the foreseeable future, but your bringing it up is definitely making me think we should talk, me and her, about some kind of plan. It shouldn't be hard, they're here every morning at breakfast, and once you and Elliott take off, the rest of us are still here. I don't see that it would be very hard for Pappy Joe to take his two young TV buddies for a bit so me and Patty could get a chance to talk things over."

"You know, I won't say I'm jealous of how you get to hang out with my grandparents every morning, but… maybe a little? Respectfully so," he specified, and she smirked.

"Naturally," she tipped her head to him. "Just like I kind of envy you your trips to and from preschool with Elliott…"

He had to smile at this. As tired as he still was when he'd wake up in the morning, as much as he would still want to just stay in bed for another hour, or two, or three… His time with Elliott as he went and dropped him off in the mornings and picked him up in the afternoons… That was just a highlight of his days, every time, before it ever happened.

Elliott was doing very well out at preschool, with his teacher and the other children. It wasn't all going so smoothly, though once they'd found out why… It had really not occurred to either of his parents that, as much as his little brother had been upset at the idea of not being able to go with him, Elliott would struggle over being at preschool by himself. Now, after over a week of his going there, and after hearing from his teacher about how he was doing… Elliott had been weeks shy of a year old when Noah was born. He didn't even remember a time when he was their only child. And without their really doing it on purpose, they had been raising their sons as such constants to one another's lives that, upon finding himself surrounded by all these other children his age but not his little brother, Elliott felt… a little lost? Or unsure of himself? It had been making it so that, unless his teacher actively put him in a situation to play with some of his classmates, Elliott would go and play on his own. It wasn't a problem in itself, no, but to see him when he did play on his own… the sentiment felt clear. He was among strangers, and he wanted his brother.

At home, Noah was doing better, but then as much as he missed his older brother – which he did, very much – he at least had the comfort of his mother, and his little brother, and his great grandparents, not to mention any combination of his grandparents dropping in regularly. He was surrounded in familiarity, whether it was family, or pets, or their home. Even if he wasn't having the same issue as Elliott, who didn't seem to understand that he was struggling, and that this was his issue, both Maya and Lucas had been left to realize they had failed in one thing, which was to nurture some element of individuality in their sons. They functioned as twins might, having never been separated and only ever being considered as a packaged deal. It wasn't to say that they weren't their own people and that they didn't have their own personalities, but now with the preschool situation, their parents saw that it hadn't been enough.

When it came time to bring Jamie back to his crib, Maya passed him over to Lucas, who stood from the bed and brought the sleeping babe slowly across the room before returning and starting to settle back down with his wife. They both let out a breath of something like gladness and anticipation. At last, sleep, again…

"Whatever you do, while you're figuring things out at the ranch, maybe you could bring Elliott with you," Maya suggested and, by the way Lucas stopped moving all at once, she knew that she had his attention. She turned herself over so she could face him. "I know how much it means to you get to get to share it all with him, as it should, and… I think it could be really good for him, to have this time on his own, with you. And then, well, of course, Noah should get his turn, too, but also…"

"Separately," Lucas understood, and it made her smile. "I love it," he smiled back before moving nearer, so that he might kiss her.

"Thought you might," she told him.

"As soon as you're ready to give it a shot, I am getting you on a horse for some riding lessons," Lucas replied, and now she had to laugh, as quietly as possible.

"That sounds good, too. Probably best that we wait a few more weeks though, you know…" she gestured vaguely, to which he gave his assurances with a quick nod.

"You know, whenever you get back to making cakes, we could always see if we might be able to connect it all to the ranch in some way… if that's something you'd be interested in."

"See?" Maya tapped his chest slowly. "I told you, ideas will come." Whether or not that would in any way connect to his ultimate position at Sullivan Stables, time would tell. At least, for tonight, they had both pieced together something very important: a start. And they had done it together.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners