A/N: [October 27th 2024]

October 27th 2023

Chapter 300
We Imagine Our History

Lucas had been on the outside and the inside of this family for the better part of his life by now, and he acknowledged this as much for quality as for quantity. He had watched the Hunter Harts come together, and grow, and expand, even before he had become son-in-law, and brother… He remembered very well how he'd started out with Shawn Hunter, knowing deep down how protective he was of Maya, before she was ever his daughter by marriage, and even though he had nothing to defend himself over, it had taken time before he and the man had gotten to the point where they were just connected, where Lucas got to understand him better, his past as much as his present.

Knowing all of this now, it made it so that when the process began for the Hunters to take in the soon-to-be graduated Freddie Jacek, that he might leave his foster home, it was in no part a surprise. No, it actually made a whole lot of sense, and it was a wonder that they hadn't been able to make it all happen sooner.

He was at the ranch today, with Shawn, and Katy, and Angela, as preparations continued for Lea and Theo's wedding. Shawn was their photographer, naturally, while Lucas had suggested there might be an opportunity for Freddie to join the wait staff for the reception. He knew the boy was looking for whatever means of making money these days, and this could be good for him. Freddie had accepted, and so here they were. For today, he had been recruited to help Shawn look around for new, different spots to take pictures of the bride and groom. He would go and pose with his wife, guiding Freddie to handle the camera. It bordered on the comical and absurd just a bit, but their teen photographer got a kick out of it, too, and that was what mattered.

As they went around, Lucas had appointed himself company for Angela Clutterbucket, leading her on a peaceful walk, where she found herself recalling memories of younger days with her late husband. Lucas was more than happy to listen to her as she went on, and she appreciated him for it. The one month anniversary of Tanner's passing had come and gone, and much as she was starting to open up again, the loss still weighed on her, on all of them.

After the posing session was over, Freddie followed Lucas back to his office, the better to receive his uniform for his actual wedding job. Lucas had set it aside for him earlier, knowing he'd be coming along. He'd also, once again, found himself continuing his exploration of the trunk, actually trying to organize everything in a way that would allow him to find things a bit better, before the family had arrived. There were piles of it all, laid out on his desk, on the floor… When Freddie saw these, he asked what they were, and Lucas explained it briefly.

"Wow," was the first thing he could think to say, and Lucas smiled to himself, thinking of Ezra and his array of 'amazed vocabulary.' "This is great."

"You think so?" Lucas asked. Freddie shrugged.

"You have this part of your family you didn't know about, and now you got this big box full of… new memories." He didn't say it aloud, but the quiet reflection in the back of his eyes finished the statement for him. He would have given so much to have something like that, too, for any part of his own family.

"Have you ever…" Lucas started to ask, then hesitated, not wanting to go and dig anywhere he shouldn't. This time Freddie was the one to catch on.

"I tried to find them once, when I was eleven. I wanted to know who they were, what happened to them, why I didn't have…" he slowly explained, looking at the objects on the desk instead of him. "Figured out… some of it… but it just gave me more questions, and I'm still not sure I want to find out the answers." Lucas bowed his head, understanding. He remembered Maya saying something about a letter Freddie had written her, but she hadn't gone into detail, keeping his confidence. He wouldn't push.

His situation hardly compared to Freddie's, but what he'd said stayed with Lucas after the boy had gone off with his uniform. The not knowing… Once upon a time, he had known next to nothing about his grandfather, his mother's birth father, except that he had died when his mother had been very little. Then he'd found out about the fire in the stables, and his death had felt more… real, and deeply tragic. It had shaken him so much. But now he had this trunk full of memories, filling in the picture in ways he would have never expected. The same might not happen for Freddie with his family, no, or it might.

That wasn't up to him. But he did have Simon… and his curiosity for the man had taken a turn, earlier that morning. He'd been sitting at his desk, back to work in putting together his speech for Lea and Theo, and without really thinking too much, he'd started to write. It wasn't until he stopped and sat back to read over what he'd done that it dawned on him what he'd started to do, what had been turning around in his mind for days without his stopping to actually put it into words. He'd started to write about his grandfather. He'd kept going, and by the time he'd left his office to go and meet with his in-laws, he'd written about eight pages, and he knew he could keep going. He knew he could piece this story together… for his children, for himself… for whoever might want to read it.

At dinner that night, if tales of all their days weren't enough to keep everyone entertained, Lucas had an extra treat for the girls, for Maya, and her siblings… Shawn had sent him the pictures that Freddie had taken of him and Katy. There had to be a bit of give and take in how Lucas showed them all the pictures, making sure they wouldn't forget their plates and let it all go cold. The girls got into the game in an instant. One bite, two bites, three bites, picture, and repeat. The prize was so funny to them that they would go and eat those next three bites, the better to be shown the next image of their grandparents being very, very silly. They were into it enough that when they did finish their dinner, they were fully willing to wait to get their dessert until after they'd gone through the last of the pictures. That worked for all of them, so long as they made sure not to wait too long. They had baths to take, hair to comb, PJs to put on, all in time for their favorite night of the week. It was show night, Nana Katy night.

They were on their eighth season of Heart of Texas now, while Goldenheart was on its third… It was hard to believe sometimes, but then they could remember. The girls couldn't remember a time when their grandmother was on television week to week, even Marianne, who had been weeks shy of four years old when they'd had their first Nana Night. What Lucas remembered most about those first nights though was the triplets. Kacey, Remy, and Lucy had been just two months old at the time, still fitting very well in a single pair of arms. And now they were seven years old, inching closer to seven and a half, which was so very important for all of them.

They had grown up with these shows, and then Mackenzie had joined them, and Aubrey, too, and now Ezra… All those nights in their living room, seeing the ups and downs, the love stories, the twists, and of course seeing Nana Katy, and then Stevie Brett, and the other actors they'd come to meet over the years, there on the screen… They had shared those nights, and after so many years, he had to wonder what they would do when one series and the other would eventually, inevitably, come to an end. Sure, there was the reasonable possibility that Katy would go and find a new role, and they could follow her there, but it wouldn't be the same, would it? That was their world, and it was so familiar to them now that it felt like it could all be real, like those characters and their stories were part of them. For now, they weren't going to think about that, and Lucas and Maya would continue to watch their children, to see how much they enjoyed sitting together for Nana Night. Seeing the girls initiate their baby brother into the tradition had been one of the best things they'd gotten to see in the past year.

"I can't believe he broke with her!" Marianne complained in disbelief as she and her sisters were guided up the stairs once the two episodes were over, most of them due for bedtime.

"I don't like it when they cry," Lucy frowned, holding one handrail to one side and Aubrey's hand to the other.

"He didn't mean it, did he? Not for real," Marianne looked to her mother.

"Don't look at me, I don't read the scripts," Maya couldn't help chuckling.

"You're right…" Marianne sighed, then turned to her father. "But you do."

"I really don't," Lucas shook his head.

"You do, too."

"Do not."

"Do, too. You run the ranch, they have to tell you," Marianne gave a raised brow worthy of her mother.

"They tell me what they need and ask if that's alright by me, when needed. I don't read the scripts, I promise," he replied, and her rebuttal was squashed mid-breath. She knew too well the value of a promise in their house. He was telling the truth, and it was disappointing. She really wanted there to be proof that her favorite fictional couple wasn't really, really broken up.

It wasn't until after the last of the children was off to bed for the night that Lucas shared his one genuine secret of the day, one that had nothing to do with scripts but very much with writing. Maya had been called back out when Wyatt came down with a crying Finneas who insisted on seeing his aunt. She was all too happy to give her nephew the cuddles he was after. Now she was back, and Lucas was waiting, sitting on the bed with his laptop.

"More work?" she asked.

"Not exactly," he replied. The way she looked at him now, she was intrigued, and it made him smile.

Truth be told, he was feeling just a bit… shy? What did he have to be shy about when it was her that he was talking to? Nothing at all, but what writing he'd done, when he'd published the ranch stories, had been little more than knitting pieces together, the stories he'd collected. This was something else, it was his story, or his grandfather's, his family's. And he wanted so much to do it justice.

He invited her to sit with him and passed the laptop over for her to hold. She looked at the file open for her to read, recognized within those first few lines what it was she was looking at, what it was he had started to create. Her eyes widened and she looked at him, smiled in wonder.

"I don't know, maybe I'm overreaching. I just sat there, and I started to write, and I kept going… I'm not sure what it'll do. If I finish it, I don't know…"

"You just keep writing whatever comes," Maya grasped his hand. "We'll see about the rest when we get there." That made him smile. Yes, together. That was the way to do it.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners