A/N: [July 5th 2024] So, not sure if anyone will still be checking in, but had some things going on that made so I couldn't write for a while, and once I ran out of chapters I'd already written, it took a long time before I was able to finish the 2023 chapters, and then to plan for 2024 and get that started. I'm currently two thirds of the way through writing the February chapters, so I still have a long way to go. The same goes for "We Three Hearts," where I currently only have four chapters at the ready and several more to catch up on, though I'm not sure yet how that's going to go. For now, I'm going to start by putting up the rest of 2023 while I continue making my way through the 2024 backlog. Thank you for your patience, and if you are here, thank you for reading. :)

September 16th 2023

Chapter 227
Families in Tandem

She barely had to be in this place to feel the effect. There would be something about driving up to the house, and parking, and walking through the door, sitting in the waiting room... It would make her feel as though she was pulling back a mask, shining a light on herself and the person she was underneath, when it came time to go and see Dr. Eisley. It wasn't as though she was unable or unsafe to be this way at home, with family, with friends, no, but here it just came naturally. Sometimes she would get to thinking that all she needed to do was get up to that point, to sit in the waiting room, sit with her thoughts for a while, without having to actually sit with the doctor and talk. But that wouldn't work, would it? Sooner or later, the effect would wear out, and she'd be right back where she'd started.

So, she went, and after sitting with her thoughts for a while, she sat across from Mallory Eisley and they talked. By the time they'd be done, she would feel... different. Sometimes she would feel lighter than she had been before, other times she'd feel as though she'd been spun on her axis and left to wobble back into the world, trying to cope with the spin and what it had opened up for her, but always she would be glad for the time. Once she'd be back with Lucas, back with their daughter and sons, she would feel lit up by their presence and their existence, just as she always did but also for this time... the way she might, if she'd been apart from them for days.

What this translated into today was an instant desire, upon leaving the doctor's office again, to go to the bakery, the better to pick up a few things for all of them to have after dinner. By the time she actually made it to Friar & Olsen's, that plan had evolved into her wanting to make them all something. She could have achieved this from her home kitchen, which was very sufficiently supplied with equipment and ingredients, but this was really the way to go… a surprise. Plus, she could help Charlie and the others while she had to wait, and the atmosphere among them all was one she didn't get to enjoy nearly as much as she wanted to, with her being at school most of the time.

Every once in a while, as she would walk up to the doors and into the bakery itself, it would strike her to recall this place being little more than a dream not too long ago. Instead, now, it had been a part of their lives for a few years, their lives, the neighborhood's lives… They were well known and cared for, and that had allowed them to carry on as they'd done, from day-to-day sales, to catering for parties and events… They were working through one of those big orders today, which was one more reason for her to go and work at the bakery.

Stepping into that kitchen, the faces were all of them familiar and more and more cared for in their own ways, but some of them were different. Some of them had been right there with her since there had been nothing but her and her kitchen. Some of her young bakers were not as little as they used to be, but they were still part of the expanded business, whether for the work experience alone or for genuine desires to follow the path, to take new steps and go further and further into the baking world.

"What are you two doing out here? Shouldn't you be in class right now?" Maya had to ask when she spied Stella and Phoebe, working their way through decorating trays of cupcakes. Jamie's godmothers were both of them seniors in high school now, if she could actually believe it. They had gone from assisting her on that stormy September day when he was born to baking with him, too many times to count, in this very kitchen, and it never stopped making her smile to watch them together.

"We had a free period, and a test after that, but we asked to do it another time, so we could come and help out here, and our teacher said yes," Stella explained.

"We're really glad to have them with us," Ariel's voice joined them before she did, having just pulled another tray from the oven.

When she had graduated from high school the previous spring, she had surprised everyone, her family maybe most of all, when she'd informed them all of her change of vocation. She'd been all set to go to Philadelphia for college, and instead she had chosen to remain in Austin, to keep working at the bakery and turn her studies in that direction. It had not been so simple of a revelation, but as she'd explained it, she had been surprised at herself, too. She had never imagined that it could all come to mean that much to her, but it had. Now all she wanted was to make this count, knowing how far she'd come. She'd never felt so sure about anything in her life. And to look at her now… They could see that happiness in her, so for all the love that they bore her… What more could they want?

"I bet," Maya beamed as she got a look at everything that the girls had been working on together. She could see how much they had learned in the years they'd worked alongside her, been taught by her both in her own kitchen and this one, and as happy as she would be to recall them as younger girls crowded around her with curious eyes on any day, on this post Eisley afternoon, the feeling only left her to experience the memory with a heart sway.

"Mrs. Friar?" Phoebe asked, and to see the looks on all three girls' faces, she might have been wearing those emotions plainly on her face, complete with the shine of tears so near to spilling that they could not be identified for their happy origins.

"What's wrong?" Stella asked, and Maya was quick to reassure her and the others before anyone else in the kitchen could be taken into this unnecessary bit of worrying.

"Nothing's wrong, nothing at all. Just memories… happy ones… about all of you," she told them, looping her arm with Stella's, helping the girl to relax at once until she had her head leaned to her shoulder. "You get back to your thing. I'm going to get something started for Lucas and the kids, but I'll help you out as soon as it's in the oven."

In the end, it became much more that the girls jumped in to help her with her dessert for the family, allowing them all to talk as they worked. Mostly it was the girls who spoke, telling Maya about school, about what they had been doing here before she'd arrived, and it was all as she would have wanted it. She wasn't looking to hide her being at Doctor Eisley's office, and they all knew that she was, especially Ariel, as the two of them had first met out there, in the waiting room, but she didn't want to spend more time in that headspace than she needed to once her appointment was over. She'd talk about it with Lucas, later on, sure, but that would be that. She much preferred hearing this trio's animated conversations about their adventures and misadventures as part of the Friar & Olsen's team.

She had told Lucas where she was headed after her appointment, and she was not surprised in the slightest when the chime of the bells over the bakery doors was soon followed by her sprout, bee, and tadpole boys speeding into the kitchen to find her. When she saw them, she felt that jolt of joy that lifted her face into an overwhelming smile, and she collected them into a good, strong embrace as they sprinted for her.

"You guys! Hello!" she laughed, kissed one blond head, and another, and another, even as Lucas and Ava came along, each of them carrying one of the twins… or trying.

Simon and Jack could walk now, and they were as fleet footed as their big brothers when they wanted to be. The sight of their mother would be one such reason, and they wriggled in their holds. Jack was first on the ground, as Ava could not keep him up so well as Lucas could, though he would have no choice but to set Simon down, too, once his twin would be able to scurry over to their mother. Elliott, Noah, and Jamie had the sense to move back and allow them forward… either that, or their attention had been pulled away by some sweet-smelling treat or another nearby… Honestly, it could have been one or the other.

Maya very quickly was taken over by a chorus of chirping little voices that echoed one another as they called for their Mama. It wasn't as though the concept of identical twins was new to her or Lucas. They had both watched her little sisters grow together over the past ten years, nearly eleven already, and despite the fact that they didn't dress the same, cut their hair the same, or behaved identically in any way, Nellie and Gracie were so like one another that it couldn't be mistaken. With the boys though… They were their sons, it wasn't the same. They may have been experts in telling them apart, in knowing just what made Simon Simon and what made Jack Jack, but that was as close to a necessity as one could make it. Their Hugabears had always felt like two halves of a whole, and that hadn't gone away now that they were almost a year and a half. If anything, it was stronger now than ever before.

"So, what'd you make?" Lucas asked Maya once he had the opportunity to come up and greet her, too. By the grin on his face, she knew that he knew that she'd intended their dessert to be a bit of a surprise, and now all he had in mind was to tease her as she'd try to keep him from seeing. He'd also know that she'd play right along with him as soon as he initiated this 'dance' with her.

"What makes you think I made anything?" she asked, adjusting her hold on the twins in her arms. They were not as tiny as they'd once been, and before long there would likely be a day where she couldn't hold them both together like this, but that day had not come yet, and she would keep on holding them like this for as long as she could, especially when they'd be in this mood, quietly clinging to her and happy to be with her as she was to be with them. "I think your dada's confused," she told the boys, who looked up at her and then over to Lucas, curious.

"Well, if you did make something…" Lucas smirked.

"If," Maya nodded along.

"How many would it serve?" he asked, and now her brow curved with curiosity of her own.

"Are we expecting guests?" she asked back. They weren't, not as far as she'd known, and he would not spring something like this on her unless it had all genuinely come together at the last minute.

"You remember that family we worked with, my dad and I, a little while ago? Helped with the situation with their house and…" he gestured as he spoke until she nodded, indicating that she remembered him telling her about all of it very well. "Their son is in Noah's class, as it turns out, and their daughter's just a year above Elliott, so we ran into each other when I went to pick them all up from school, and we were talking, and they were still so grateful…"

It was really all that she needed to know for the other pieces to fall into place. Honestly, she would have done the same thing. As far as dinner was concerned, this had already been set as their take-out night, and their guests were more than happy with the prospect, so there was no need to rush home and start cooking for four extra plates on top of their already crowded table. They'd do just fine once their guests joined them back at the house.

They would have a few more kids with them at dinner even without the new additions. While Jamie was doing his favorite thing at the bakery – other than standing at the register – by working with the newly arrived Lambert back in the kitchen, and Noah was doing his favorite thing by staring at all the treats in the glass-topped counter, Elliott was sitting at one of the tables along with his best friends, Max and Max. The Farrell boy and McAllister girl were not only having dinner with them but spending the night for a sleepover at the Friar house. The boy's sister would be joining them, too, though she hadn't come along with the rest of them as she had a doctor's appointment that had taken her out of school before the end of the day.

"Hey," Lucas approached his one and only daughter, sitting on her own at a corner table, bent to work over her notebook. This was not schoolwork. He knew enough to recognize when she was doing that and when she was doing this… She was working on her music. "We're heading home soon. Do you need a few more minutes?"

"No, I'm ready when you are," she promised with a smile. It was not put upon by any means, but he could still sense something of an underlayer of concern and anticipation. He could guess what was behind that feeling today, waiting for her best friend, for her girlfriend, as she had to wonder about her appointment and how it was all going. Whether she was getting anything done on any bit of song work or not, it was helping to keep her mind from spinning out of control, and he understood that.

"You know, sometimes I wish I could do what you and your mom can do," he told her, tipping his head to her notebook. She looked down and up again, and her smile was all he needed to see.

With Maya's dessert packed up, the family and their guests set off to first pick up dinner and then head on toward home. As they all knew that they were expecting more guests, the kids were all too eager to help set the table for all of them. Those of them who didn't know the family already – in part at least – were naturally curious about who they were and why they were coming to dinner. Once they knew that it had to do with their father and their grandfather and 'the office,' it all started to fall into place, but really the most important part for them would end up being that they had kids roughly their age. Noah wasn't exactly best friends with their son, though it wasn't to say that they didn't like one another, far from it. They just hadn't played with each other all that much. Now that he was coming over to the house though, one would have thought that Noah had been waiting for this all along.

"I'm going to answer, I'm going!" he bolted ahead of his brothers as soon as they heard the doorbell ring. Max and Max were soon following, too, as were the girls, barely reunited now that Kelsey had been dropped off. Maya and Lucas followed as well, with the twins in arm, the better to be present as Mr. and Mrs. Killian and their children were welcomed into their home.

In no time, Noah had incited classmate Jonah to follow him upstairs, the better for him to see his brothers and his room, which got Elliott, Jamie, Max, and Max to tag along. Stood just ahead of her mother and leaning against her just enough to suggest she would be the type to need to acclimate to new surroundings and new people, was the Killians' daughter. While her parents spoke with their hosts, the soon to be eight-year-old Agnes simply took in her surroundings without a word. When she saw that Maya had noticed her observations, she tried to avert her eyes without being so obvious about it, but now she sort of couldn't help herself. She'd look back at her as discreetly as she could, which was to say 'not very.'

What eventually started getting her out of her bubble was when Ava and Kelsey started speaking to her, as Ava had noticed the book held secured in the child's arms. She would sit with the two of them at dinner, and her voice would be heard more and more, sharing her budding love for reading. Between this and the way her brother was getting along with the Friar boys, it was becoming more and more likely that this dinner would only be the first of many. If that was the case, then Maya and Lucas both were all for it. The Killians would be more than welcome.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners