A/N: JUNE 25TH - Hey, so as much as I'm trying to stay on top of things, where I used to be one month ahead of posting with my writing, right now with my job and everything I lost all that advance and haven't had a chance to build any of it up again, which means I'm writing the chapters on the day they go up. Some days, that'll mean that I don't get it done in time because I'm too tired to do so once I get home. I'm hoping to get that settled soon, but if I miss days here and there in the near future, that's why, and I'll do my best to catch up asap. Thanks!

June 24th 2023

Chapter 215
Count Your Leaves And Grow

He could just imagine what he must have looked like, stepping up to the store that afternoon. It wasn't as though this was a first for him, far from it at this point. Only this one… There'd been no plan, none whatsoever, save for this thought that somewhere down the line they might consider having more children. There'd been no intention for them to do so now, yet here they were. Maybe. As much as their guts told them that this would go exactly the way they thought it would, there was still a chance that they'd be wrong, wasn't there? He just needed to grab a test or two, take them home, and then…

"Luke?"

There was exactly one person who called him that, and hearing her voice just now, he did feel like a kid sneaking up the pregnancy aisle. He stowed that thought away as quickly as he could and turned to find not just his mother but both of his parents coming to meet him. His father had a basket in one hand as he read the back of a shampoo bottle. He looked up now and smiled, seeing his son standing where he'd stopped.

"Fancy meeting you here," Melinda laughed as she greeted him with a quick hug and a kiss.

"Yeah, I'm just picking up a couple of things for Maya and the kids," he explained as casually as he could make himself sound. He resisted the urge to reach out and pick up the first thing he could get his hands on. It wouldn't help him if his goal was to look less suspicious.

Luckily, they made it through the surprise run-in without incident. Lucas made quick work of picking out a couple of tests, paying for them, and heading back to the car. He'd picked up a couple of treats for the kids, too, the better to throw off the scent of suspicion, as well as a pack of diapers for the twins. That had been his excuse for going out again without taking any of the kids with him, and after meeting his parents out there, he'd come this close to forgetting to grab the box. They still had plenty to get through the day and then some, but hopefully no one would come to realize that.

"How come you got more diapers?" Ava frowned, the moment she saw him, like it had been bugging her since he'd left. Of course, she would… Lucas thought as he looked to Maya for assistance with just a bit of a 'why don't you ask your mom' look. Under the circumstances, she went for less of a 'oh, is that how we're going to play it?' response and jumped in with the save.

"They're for another teacher at the school," she explained, taking the box from Lucas. "She's supposed to be looking after her nephew this week, and I told her I'd bring these to her tomorrow." Without another word, she took the box out to her car. It would stay there until their own stock ran out… or the secret was out and there was no more need for hiding, whichever came first.

The treats did their work so far as the boys were concerned. They were having a pretty good day already thanks to the new decorations, so this only made it better. It was more complicated when it got to Ava, who was notably older and just plain clever on the whole. She'd be more prone – as she was showing here – to look at all the pieces and assemble them into the completed picture that they created, and right here those pieces showed her nothing but subterfuge and lies. She just wasn't sure why, so she would look at her father like she needed to keep searching out the truth, because if she didn't find it… She didn't like the idea that he or Maya would lie to her, not after everything that had come before, with her birth parents. The best he could do was look at her and telegraph the fact that all was well. She still looked a bit unsure, but she went and joined her brothers.

Purely by chance, Patty had already been up from the small house that morning to say that she and Pappy Joe would make dinner, which meant that she came and collected the kids when it came time to start on the cooking. They always loved to help, didn't they? Now it was down to the two of them… maybe three of them… as Lucas followed Maya upstairs to the bathroom. They hadn't been so nervous about taking one of these since Noah, or maybe Elliott, if for different reasons. But they'd be fine… right? They had six children already, which felt astronomical on its own, but they were doing okay. Did they get by on a lot of things by chance and assistance? Did they hit rough patches every now and again that forced them to tighten up? Yes, and yes. And if this all got to be so much that they wanted to put the stopper on chances of ending up in a situation like this, well… they would have done it already. Anyway, they didn't have the answer yet…

He more or less made himself invisible for the first part, while Maya went through the steps with the pace of someone who'd done this too many times to even need to slow down for a second. She just needed to do her part as soon as possible so that the tests would do theirs. She hadn't specified if she wanted one or more this time, but two had felt like the right number, and she'd taken them both. In no time, they sat on the counter, and the clock was started. The wait time was always awkward, and that was where he came in.

"You know, if this one's a girl, I'm sure I know someone who'd love to have a new roommate," he pointed out, and Maya looked at him for a moment before letting out a chuckle. "I mean, sure, she'd be with us up here for a while, but then after that…"

"I'm pretty sure the moment we tell them all, she'll already be plotting it all in her head. There'll be a floor plan and everything."

"Done to scale," he agreed, and he felt her heart lighten, shedding much of its anxiety. Seeing this, Lucas stepped up to put his arms around her. They stayed like this for about half a minute without speaking.

"Is it weird that the idea of caring for a baby girl after five baby boys feels just a bit scary?" Maya mumbled, and Lucas smiled. When he heard her laugh to herself, he looked down at her. "Don't pretend like you're already hoping it is a girl, like you haven't already named her and started thinking of all the things you'd do with her once we had her."

"I am neither confirming nor denying, he informed her, and she hummed before stretching up to kiss him. They got lost in that kiss as the seconds wound down, in equal parts for love as for reassurance. Whatever came next, they'd deal with it together.

There would be no telling whether or not all these thoughts and schemes for a baby girl or any floor plans made by eager big sisters would come to anything, but for the day they did know one thing. When the seconds had run out and summoned them from their kiss before it could become more of what had landed them in this present situation, Lucas stood in wait, catching his breath, while Maya took a step over to see what the tests had to say.

"Huh…" she spoke, giving no further context clues for him to know what this meant.

"Well?" he slowly asked.

"I mean, the streak we've got going hasn't been easy to break, but… stranger things have happened, yeah?" she turned to look at him, with a small smile on her face.

Lucas gaped at her for a beat, looked behind her to confirm it for himself. They looked so simple, so unimportant as objects, and yet all they had to do was be positive, and they had the power to knock the breath from him, to send his knees quaking and his heart racing.

"Wow…" was the first thing that came out of his mouth, and when it made her snort, he turned back to her, unable to do anything except smile so, so bright, and embrace her. Here we go again, huh? It was all so much more than they could stop and think about in the immediate aftermath of confirmation. They'd find their footing, they'd start and prepare for all of it, but just now the only thing they could think about was that, for the fifth time in so few years, they were expecting.

They got through the rest of the evening as though nothing was going on, and the night ended with some more celebrating once they were alone again… When Maya woke the next morning, she felt light, and as unburdened as one could get. She remembered this little life that was inside her now, which was not difficult, not when she had her husband's hand resting where it knew to go, every time. As she'd told Lucas the night before, just as they were dozing off, was how he'd already done it, a few days ago. It wasn't as though he never had his hand over her while they slept, attached as they were to their spooning, but this was different, this was the hold that came when she'd be pregnant. He probably hadn't done it intentionally, as he'd been asleep, but she'd noticed… and she'd thought it funny, until she'd stopped and realized that she was late. That was what had started it all, and she still couldn't believe that it had actually been true. They were having another baby. She had no morning sickness yet, and thank goodness for that, but she didn't expect that to continue much longer.

She remained as she was for now, allowing the reality of this new pregnancy to feel that way… real. She thought about telling the kids, seeing their reactions… and their floor plan… She thought of telling her family, telling the Friars… Her eyes went to the tree painted on her bedroom wall, with all its leaves, each one representing someone in the world who would be glad to know of this baby's coming, and some of them no longer with them, but still… Wherever you are, Dad, I know you're happy about this, too.

She also had to think about her job, and how she'd have to go and be on leave again. She wouldn't get to finish out this school year, would she? There was no telling exactly when she'd have the baby, but if her count was correct, it would be due… well, somewhere in May, probably, along with Lucas, and Elliott, and Noah… It would make for a crowded month, and that was just fine by her. When she pointed this out to him, after he woke, she saw how it made Lucas smile, too, sending him off on his day with that thought.

For her part, she had to go to school and not let anyone see through her, which was admittedly easier said than done when there'd be so many eyes turned on her from the start to the end. Before classes even started, she had stepsister Stevie and her new friend, Ashleigh Tomlinson, coming into her classroom. This was primarily due to the latter of the pair, who had quickly shown herself to have an attachment to the space and to Maya, like they both made her feel more at ease, starting her days at school. Her mother, who was still one of the lunch ladies as she had been when Maya had been a student, would greet any visit from the art teacher with a great smile and an offer of snacks whenever she met her in the cafeteria, or the kitchens, for the baking club. With what she had just learned the day before, Maya had a feeling that she would find it very hard not to visit the woman more often than she usually did. She wouldn't be surprised if she ended up being the first one to find out about the baby.

She put off any kitchen excursion at least until after her period with the Class Creatives. As much as the very idea of those great big cookies they made would make her feet feel compelled into motion, there were many more reasons for her to stay focused on her second batch of seventh graders, some of them more than the others… one of them… She had been hoping that the presence of someone like Joy Augustin would be all that someone like Cade Foster needed to just sort of… expand, open up…

And in some ways, he had started to do that. She would see him and Joy sitting in her classroom, and they'd be talking. She'd see them interact beyond art class, had even spotted them once at the mall, just last week. Then this morning, something was different. They weren't distant from one another, Joy looked concerned, not mad, but Cade was quiet again, closed in, and she didn't know what to make of it except for what she'd see as they left for their next class. Boys, in the hall, calling after Cade. She didn't make out all that they said, but she caught the word 'mother' right before Cade sped off and the boys howled with laughter.

The encounter stayed with her as the day wore on. Maybe some of it went to hormones, and the start of this new pregnancy, but she couldn't bear whatever was going on with Cade. She needed to get to the bottom of it. Right now, she would look at him, and she'd see the weight on his shoulders, everywhere he went. It felt all too familiar to her, from growing up after her father had walked out on her and her mother. She knew that Cade's situation was very different, with his mother being in prison and unlikely to ever be free, but she understood the weight of a parental burden and how it could feel that much heavier on shoulders as slight as theirs. All of it made her want to reach out to him, to find some way to connect with him, and it left her spending a long stretch of her break looking back through the work he'd done so far this year, so she might somehow glean even the slightest bit of information about who Cade Foster was as a person.

"Is that a spaceship?"

The voice startled her and she looked up to find Taylor Munroe stood across from her desk, looking down at the painting she had been starting at for a while. Of all of Cade's work as she had it at her disposal, this one had shown the most promise. She looked at it again, and now that Taylor had said it – with no shade whatsoever to Cade or his artistic skills – she did have to admit the thing could have been a ship, which in turn made the rest of the image make a lot more sense.

"Looks that way, yeah," she smiled at Taylor, resisting the urge to shake his hand or hug him, in thanks for this breakthrough. It was made harder still by the fact that he did look an awful lot like his half brother and shared a lot of what made Dylan a most beloved friend to anyone fortunate enough to count him as such. He looked confused as to why she smiled even more all of a sudden, but she just brushed it off and motioned for him to take his seat.

By the time she made it to her final class, with the Polychromatics, she was looking forward to heading home. It wasn't that she was overly exhausted all of a sudden because she'd found out that she was pregnant, but it would get kind of exhausting to spend all this time pretending as though this was a normal day for her, pretending like the trajectory of her life and her family's life hadn't just been greatly altered by the addition of one more little life in a matter of months. It was some comfort at least that this final group of the day was on the whole a very relaxed one.

On this day in particular, she was treated to Lea Sullivan-Reyes deciding to share the latest song she had added to her 'musical arsenal' with her class while they all drew at their pads. This might not have flown in most other classes, but it most certainly did here and, better yet, Lea was surprised and soon delighted when her neighbor and friend, Lambert Day, looked up, half a minute into her singing, and started singing along with her, his smile indicating that he knew the song well and enjoyed it. The unexpected harmony stalled the work just a bit, but Maya didn't mind it.

She'd tell Lucas all about it later on, even as he told her about his own day. He may or may not have cooked up an excuse to work from the ranch that day instead of going into the office. It had been one thing to run into him and get away with it the night before, when he didn't actually know beyond a suspicion that he was about to be a father once again, but now he knew, and he could not see himself making it very long before his father caught on.

That was alright though, because once he was at Sullivan Stables, he had so many things he could, should, and did do. His time here was primarily divided between riding lessons with his four students and working on the series, and so whenever he'd be here on a day when he didn't have a lesson on the schedule with Ava, Kelsey Farrell, Nellie Hunter, or Bobby Davis, the choice was easy.

There was a lot more to it than simply coming up with an idea and filming it. They'd have guests, or they'd go out on location, and he'd have to set all of it up, with those people and places involved and with the station, too. If they needed any kind of added props, or costumes – which Ava had suggested and had led to their including the occasional skit – then he needed to track those down. He'd gotten a great connection there, thanks to Katy and her connection to the Silvan Hughes Theater, and going by the way the skits had been received so far, that was probably a good thing. They'd need their assistance many times over.

When it came to hair, makeup, or music, there at least he had everything covered very easily. The first two would see interventions by both his wife and their daughter, and the last – depending on what was needed – would involve one or both of them, too. By now, he would find a way to include some of that every week, knowing how happy it made Ava to get to collaborate with her mother, and vice versa.

Thinking of them now, thinking of Maya, it sent a new jolt up his spine, through his heart… They were having another baby… As much as they had not planned for this to happen when it did, now it had and no matter how much a part of him would feel like he needed to look at the news and immediately start to figure out whether they'd be able to afford everything they'd need – which he would do, in due time – it was all still too new for him to do anything except exist with his excitement. His conversation with Maya had planted this idea in him of their having a baby girl, and he knew it would wreck him in the best way if that happened, but then so would being handed a sixth baby boy. It was good news no matter what.

Of course, that fact only made keeping hush about it all that much harder, for him as much as for her. And while spending their day dodging their own feelings, trying not to let them get too close to the surface where everyone could see and guess at them, was difficult, it didn't get that much easier when they got back home to their children. There weren't as many of them, sure, and most of them wouldn't even have the ability to look at their parents and think 'hey, you look strangely happy, this must mean you are expecting,' but the others would, and one in particular would be very hard to fool. They could only dodge her for so long, but they would do their best. In the meantime, they would bask in their reunion, keeping stories for later while he did as he would at a time like this and asked about how she was doing, how things had gone on this first day, knowing. She happily reported that all had gone as well as they could hope on that front, and that was all he needed to hear.

At dinner, they found the perfect subterfuge in discussing Halloween costumes with the children. Much as they had tried, going back and forth a few times when it seemed that they had finally come to an agreement, the consensus remained unreached. So long as this was the case, no progress could be made, and this only brought out frustrations among the siblings, presenting here and there like anxiety, as though the holiday was under threat of not happening if they didn't decide. It would be particularly unfortunate if that happened because it would be both Simon and Jack's first Halloween. They wouldn't have known exactly what they were missing out on, but their brothers and sister sure would, and this would not stand. With continued assurances that picking one idea over the others wouldn't mean that they could never revisit those others another time, without even having to wait for next year's Halloween, they slowly but sure made progress.

"You know, this got me thinking," Lucas told Maya, later that night, as they got ready for bed.

"Yeah?" she asked, feeling a smile come on before hearing any of what he had to say. On his tone alone, a smile felt appropriate.

"Elliott's first Halloween," he replied, and that made her laugh on top of that smile.

"Who would have thought that one year after finding out about him, we'd already be waiting on his little brother?" she hummed.

"I was thinking about the pictures we took, the three of us in our costumes," Lucas went on, sitting on the edge of their bed. As he said this, she approached him, the memory coming to her, too. They had known about their unborn Bee, their Noah, but no one else had. Looking at those pictures afterward, once they all knew, it was really so plain to see. Lucas put his arms around her today as he had done then, only at the time he had been behind her, his hands discreetly at her not quite rounding belly, hidden by their baby boy. Now, sitting as she stood before her, he substituted the gesture by pressing a kiss just about where he'd know her belly button to be, and it made her chuckle, running her fingers through his hair as he remained near to her.

"We'll have to do it all again this year. You, me, the kids, and our secret little chick."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners