January 19th 2024

Chapter 19
The Season For Family

It was really just as well that the whole Friar house was now aware that they counted not just one but two pregnant residents, especially for Nellie's sake. The first time mother-to-be, for as long as any of them had known her, had been known to have issues with anyone being sick, as much on the side of the sufferer as on that of the observer, and now this was becoming a daily problem. On the nights when Bobby would be staying at the house, or when she'd be at his place with him, that'd be one thing. When she was home with her twin, that was another. On this last night though, she'd been home, but Gracie had not, so Maya and Lucas had found themselves joined by a night visitor who had by all means outgrown her visitor days. But then there she'd be, coming off so much smaller than she was, curled up against her big sister, and there'd be nothing either Maya or Lucas would want or be able to do about it.

In the morning, he made sure to be up and out of the way by the time his sister-in-law woke up, because once she did, it wouldn't be long she'd be dashing for the bathroom, with Maya right behind her. In her case, fortunately, the sickness had been brief and she was moving along, all the better to help her little sister. Eventually, the two of them would end up back in the big bed, with Maya holding Nellie and rubbing her back, to soothe her nerves again.

"Sometimes I still can't get used to the idea, you know?" Nellie mumbled after a while. "How there's a baby growing in me, and it's going to come out…"

"Yeah, I remember that feeling," Maya hummed. "Sometimes I can't wrap my head around how many of them I've had," she admitted, and that went some way toward making her sister feel better. "I think the two of them are going to be really close to one another."

"I hope so," Nellie smiled to herself.

"They're pretty close to each other right now," Maya pointed out, looking down to where their growing bellies rested so close to one another. Now Nellie laughed, moving to let them meet.

"High five, cousin," she whispered, and Maya hugged her with a snort.

They had told Bobby he was welcome to let himself in at whatever time if work or anything kept him away, especially now with the baby coming, but he felt weird about it, so he'd compromise by appearing in the morning, for breakfast, with the things Nellie had established as her safe foods post sickness. She'd snatch the bag from him as soon as he'd appear, and that'd be fine by him. So long as she was able to eat, it was all he needed. Once she'd gotten some of the food down, she would 'come back to her senses' - her words - and she'd be so happy to see him, to lean to him as he sat next to her… She'd tell him about her night, and her morning, their own baby report. He'd be fully locked in to the conversation, listening, asking questions… He had become the fully dialed in dad-to-be the moment he'd found out they were going to be parents, reading and reading and making sure he would be ready by April.

It had been reasonable for them both to alternate between this house and the brothers' apartment up to this point, but there had been a lot of talk about what would happen now that Nellie and Bobby were about to have a child. Hopping from one place to the other, especially when they didn't always end up at the same place on some nights, didn't feel like a viable option anymore. They wanted to be together every night and morning, they needed to be, and Nellie was fully committed to having her years at the Friar house like the rest of her siblings. There were already fourteen of them living in there, with one more due to 'move in' that March, so at this point would a couple more make that much of a difference? Even three more, if bringing Bobby in meant bringing Ethan, too… Wyatt had offered to take himself and Finn across the road to his parents' house, if it might help, but that wasn't what they wanted. They'd make it work.

That big question of just how they'd do it all would keep coming back, and they would address it again and again, all the logistics, especially things like food, all that would have to go into meal prep, which was already turning their kitchen into a very small restaurant day by day. As if Maya and Lucas weren't already having to turn the subject of bedrooms over and over in their heads, the 'Davis Situation' was only adding to it. The twins' room was just fine for the two of them, but there was no way they could have the two of them, plus their boyfriends, and then the baby… They had the guest room, which was already standing to lose that title in hopes of shuffling the Friar kids enough to move Ezra and eventually his unborn sibling out of the master bedroom… There was the basement, where they had once had another guest room, but that had become their playroom, and there was no way they could take that away from them.

"You know Annie would sleep in the Hex if she thought it would help," Nellie told Maya as they walked through the mall. Their check-ups had been back to back, that morning, and with some time left before they had to go back to class and work for the afternoon, they'd gone to see about presents for Ella's birthday.

"You say that anywhere near her, I'm teaching that kid the most annoying songs I can think of," Maya pointed at her, and Nellie laughed.

Maya had been given a very detailed list, each of the girls' choices for their big sister's gifts, and she'd picked them all up along with her own. Lucas had wanted to get his own gift for her by himself, so he would. Later though, when everyone got home, the girls were very eager to see their gifts and to get them wrapped. They had to wait until after dinner, but when the moment came, they all got to pick out their paper, ribbons, and bows… Ella would be able to look at each one and know which of her sisters it came from.

"I want to do it, Mommy," Mackenzie insisted after Maya had done Aubrey's for her, at her request.

"Sure, go for it," Maya nodded. Would it look as neat as the one she'd just done? Probably not. But it would come from Mackenzie, and that would really be what mattered.

Marianne was a very neat gift wrapper by now. Lucy did alright, as did Kacey. Remy was very slow going at it, but she surprised them with how good it looked by the end. She was so proud of it that it was almost too bad they'd have to unwrap it to get at the present. The next couple of days, Remy 'visited' with the gift, as Lucas called it, like she needed to make sure that it was still okay, still looking the way she'd left it.

When the morning of Ella's birthday arrived, as they all got ready to leave the house, she was quick to retrieve it and hold on to it, arms locked securely around the box wherever she went.

"Are you actually going to give it to her?" Maya asked when they were about to head out. Remy looked up at her with those Friar eyes of hers, and Maya laughed. "We'll take pictures first, okay? I promise."

"I shouldn't have made it this good," Remy sighed, turning heel to follow the others.

"It's not easy, I know," Maya tapped her shoulders. "First time I made a really good birthday cake for any of you, your dad had to cut it, because I sure wouldn't."

"He told me," Remy told her, laughing.

"He loves those stories way too much, he forgets I have a few on him, too." The sneaky look Remy threw back at her, no matter how much she looked like her father on the whole, that was when her own features came out like she was staring into a mirror. "Later, later, come on," Maya nudged her daughter on.

They had asked Ella what she wanted them to do for her birthday. It was a weekday, so of course if they were going to do anything bigger at any time, it would have to be on the weekend. But for the day itself, which they could not simply let slip by unnoticed, the options had been breakfast or dinner, and she had chosen breakfast. Would it have been less time constrained in the evening? Sure. But breakfast was breakfast, and with their family they didn't even really have to ask. So, they took off as early as they could, so they could have as much time as possible before they all had to get on with their days.

As hurried as they were, Maya and Lucas still had to laugh when they saw the girls and Ezra crowd around her with their presents for her to open. They weren't alone, as two-year-old Sunny came to join her aunts and uncle with that same energy, and Tori carried baby sister Melly forward, too. Taylor did his best to help his wife and the mass of kids as the presents were opened. Remy was last to pass hers over, with just one last shred of hesitation. All it took was Ella seeing her there, seeing the present and being instantly amazed and awed, and Remy remembered what was inside and how she'd chosen it for her. The paper was delicately picked apart, the bow was stuck atop Remy's head, happily received, and it was kept there even as Ella hugged her in thanks for the gift.

"How are you doing?" Ella asked her mother as the two of them and Lucas got to have a moment to themselves while the kids swarmed around Taylor to help with breakfast. She was always so excited at the anticipation of becoming a big sister once again, and this one had been so far removed from the others that it could almost be seen as the first time all over again.

"Honestly, a lot better than I thought I would," Maya nodded. She got to hear plenty more about the ins and outs of the pregnancy than her younger siblings would, being older and having had three babies of her own already, and it was really something that her parents cherished, this unforeseen privilege of having a grown daughter walk into their lives the way she'd done.

Every year they got to spend with her, they would think about this, think about where they'd all started together. Every birthday they'd have with her, they would remember the tired and lonely girl who'd come to them, with her baby girl barely a month old, fending for the both of them, barely hosted by an older sister who'd done the very minimum for her all along. To their knowledge, there had been zero contact with her in the past ten years, though Ella had once heard that she'd moved out of Austin.

Ten years… She'd been with them ten years now, as their guest, then very soon as their adopted daughter. That was the thing they were celebrating this year, as Ella's birthday made them look back. Ten years with her, with Tori… Ten years since their paths had been made to cross, just when they needed it. They hated to think where they would all have been now if things hadn't turned out that way for all of them, if Summer Levesque hadn't become Ella Friar. Her and Tori, their new family, then Taylor, and Sunny and Melly, even Theo and Lea, and then Nika, with her Anthony… Not all of it had been perfect, but they'd had each other to get through it all.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners