Chapter 9
In This House

If not for the fact that all the stores were closed for the holidays, Lucas well suspected his mother would have found a way to garnish their Christmas tree with a sudden influx of presents for Maya and him, and for her Junebug grandchild. As predicted, it had not taken long before she had adopted the nickname, now that she knew when it was due to be born. Then again, never let it be said that Melinda Friar did not have her ways.

Before they could discover all this, of course, Maya and Lucas had spent Christmas morning at the Hunter Hart house, with Maya's parents and her young siblings. It was MJ's second Christmas, technically, but he had been all of two weeks old for the first one, so the extent of his involvement with that day had been to sleep, mostly, and then holler until his diaper might be changed. This year, just a little over a year old, he was more involved, to some point, but it mostly required for someone to make faces at him and speak in cheerful tones, and then he'd respond in kind.

The highlight of the morning, without contest, involved Nellie and Gracie. They had long discovered how amusing it could be, when there were presents to open – whether they were theirs or someone else's – to then take the colorful bows and stick them in other places. Last Christmas, they had giggled as the bows were stuck further and further up their father's arms, the crowning glory going atop his head, until he looked like a giant Christmas tree. This year, hot on the news that they were to be aunts because there was a baby inside their big sister's belly, Gracie had been the first to snatch up a bow and get up from the ground to go and stick it right there over the swell showing through Maya's shirt. Never to be left far behind, Nellie had gone next and done the same.

By the time all the presents were open, there was a veritable field of bows stuck over Maya's shirt, and she looked like she never waited any of them to be removed.

Finally, after lunch, it had been time to pack up and transfer themselves over to the Friar house for the remainder of their stay in Austin. This was never an easy thing to do, as it involved seeing Maya's sisters grow emotional because they didn't want her to go, but now it made her emotional, too, and the next thing they knew, they were packing up a couple more bags, taking Nellie and Gracie to stay at the Friar house with them. Katy and Shawn had found it near impossible to deny their eldest, while Lucas' parents had been all for welcoming the twins into the house, so that was that.

When they had arrived at the Friar house, Lucas' father had come out to help with the bags, while the three sisters went up, one twin holding each of Maya's hands. Just inside the door, they had been greeted by an ever cheerful Melinda, who first helped ridding Nellie and Gracie of coats, and boots, and other winter accessories, before pulling her future daughter-in-law into a hug, asking how she was doing as though she hadn't seen her in weeks when she had seen her not twenty-four hours ago.

"You should have seen her," Maya told Lucas, an hour later, when they finally managed to go up to his room to start settling in. "It was like her circuits got crossed between Hostess Mode and Grandma Mode. She wanted to take me straight to the tree, but she couldn't because manners," she gestured. He smirked. He could picture it very well.

She had dug up just about everything they still had in the house that might be of some use to the future parents, including books she'd read when she was pregnant herself. They were just over two decades old, but she swore by them. As Maya had told Lucas before, she was all for taking whatever Melinda had to offer her, so she accepted these with sincere thanks. Her favorite discovery might not have been the content of the books, which was more or less everything she already had with the books they had gotten for themselves.

"Look," she'd shown Lucas, opening one of the books. There were notes in the margins, passages underlined and highlighted, the writing all in his mother's neat handwriting. Some were questions, things she meant to look up, sometimes with an answer scribbled underneath. On the right hand side of the page though, near the top, were a series of names.

For a girl:

Marianne

Eleanor

Catherine

For a boy:

Thomas Jr.

Simon

Lucas

Seeing the circle around his own name, he had smiled, though at the same time he was sort of curious, seeing all those other options, how he'd almost been named after his father, where in the end it had been relegated to an all too rhyming middle name. And the girl names… To his knowledge, his parents had not wanted to know what they were having, so he wondered if they had found out at some point, or if his mother had gone back through her book and marked their choice after he'd been born. Either way, this small evidence of the thought which had gone into his naming left him with a small leap in his heart. Soon, it would be him and Maya who'd have to make a choice, for their own child. He or she couldn't be Sprout forever.

Along with the books, Melinda Friar had gifted Maya with bundles and bundles of yarn, now that she knew that she'd taken up knitting. Maya didn't know where she'd gotten it all, and the patterns, too, as to her knowledge Lucas' mother did not knit herself, but she did not doubt the woman's methods in getting what she needed, holidays or not.

The last gift had nearly sent Maya's knees wobbling right out from under her, when she'd opened the envelope and seen the amount written on the check inside. She'd tried to say it was too much, that they couldn't accept it, but Melinda wouldn't have it. This was theirs to use, to furnish their home with the things they would need once the baby was born. There was an unspoken addition to this statement, where her future mother-in-law seemed to want to know what she and Lucas planned to do about that. They hadn't gotten around to telling her or Mr. Friar any of their plans, no one. Only Katy knew, and there only really that they planned to move back to Austin after the end of the coming semester.

"I didn't want to jump into all that, especially when it was just me, so I sort of thanked her and found a way to dodge the question for now, I mean…" Maya showed the check, and Lucas' eyes did what she guessed her own had done when she'd first seen it, too.

"Woah…"

"I know," she nodded, looking around like she really needed to find a safe place to store it until they could figure out what to do about it. When she found it, she sat back on the bed, breathing deep. "We should go and check out the house this week."

"Yeah," he agreed, sitting with her.

"Just us though. Don't want this to turn into a thing," she specified and he smiled. His mother would definitely make it into a thing, his father and grandfather, too, probably. "And…" she started after a beat, pausing a moment as she reached for the chained ring, which had slipped to sit at her throat when she'd laid down on the bed. "We should probably talk about this, too," she smiled now, like he did.

"I was hoping we would," he leaned back on his side, head in his hand as he looked at her.

"We need to decide when, what with… all this…" she set her hand to her belly and then lifted it a few inches to indicate growth. "Do we do it before I get too big, or do we wait until after…" He considered this for a moment, but really what it came down to was that it wasn't entirely up to him, that it really mostly depended on what she wanted, what she felt.

"I will marry you… whenever, wherever, however…" he vowed, which made her chuckle.

"That's sweet, but let's not wait too long."

"Fair," he agreed.

"I just… It may only come as fifty-fifty of a surprise, but I have considered what our wedding would look like before." At this, he sat up again, cross-legged, back raised, attentive. She laughed. "You're marrying an artist, it can't be helped. The point is… just because we're kind of on a ticking clock with the baby coming, it doesn't mean I will take any shortcuts about this. I want the whole thing, you know?"

"The whole thing sounds good."

"So," she nodded, "It will take some time to plan everything, especially seeing as both of us will be in school full time, and working, and I'll have the band, and Professor Robinson…"

"And I…" he cut in, as a thought came to him, "I'll have the clinic." She blinked, not knowing what this meant. So, he told her how his aunt Tanya had offered to take him on to work at her clinic a few times over the week, starting in January. He had hesitated to take it at first, especially seeing as they would be leaving Houston in half a year's time. But then his aunt didn't know about the baby or any of that at the time, and he couldn't refuse the opportunity, so he'd said yes.

"Lucas, that's great…" Maya sat up, grinning.

"It'll only be until we move back here," he shrugged, but she wouldn't have it. She took his hands, gave them a squeeze until he looked at her.

"That's great," she repeated, and finally he smiled, nodded.

"Yeah, it is," he agreed. "So… all of that, and then the wedding…"

"All of that… So, if we want the wedding we were going to have…" she started again.

"We do, and we will," he vowed, making her smile again.

"Then with everything else, I think it'll just have to be… over the summer, or later, I… It'll be after this one's born," she nodded down to herself. "Which might not be a bad thing, I mean… Big day for all of us, yeah?" He agreed. "Plus," she added, holding a brief pause, "It'll spare me having to look at maternity wedding dresses, even if I would have nailed the stink eye at anyone giving me looks like they didn't approve."

"They wouldn't stand a chance," Lucas confirmed. She replied by mouthing what he was sure to be the words 'not a chance.' "So… summer… July? August?"

"If we're going for after baby, then it'd probably be a good idea to give us time to get a handle on things, and for me to… well… regain my figure… just a bit," she explained with a shy smile that made him lean forward and kiss her. "You know, even when you don't say the words, I know you thought something in your head like 'you're always perfect to me,'" she intoned in that voice of hers, the one she'd pull out to imitate him, exaggerating his tone.

"Your powers are great," he bowed his head, then raised it again a few seconds later, looking at her with a smile.

"What?" she asked, instantly curious. "What?" she nudged him to speak.

"Well, if we're going to wait, and we want to plan it right, and you want to have time, then I think I have it." He got up from the bed, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen, tracing in 11 01. She beamed at once, seeing their anniversary date.

"You had to write down November 1st, you couldn't just tell me?" she inquired.

"You're not the only one who can be creative, you know?" Lucas pointed out, and she raised her eyebrow, amused. So, he used his pen to explain it. "You and me," he pointed to the 1 and 1 that made November, before pointing to the 0 and the last 1, "And in the belly… well, out of the belly… the sprout."

"If my powers are great, yours are just weird… and amazing," she laughed, dropping back to the mattress with a hum. "November 1st… It's already one of my favorite days out of the year… And it's when you and I started, so… It can be a start again, for the next part, and… Wait, what day of the week is it, the coming year…" They couldn't well get married in the middle of the week, could they? Not if they wanted all their people there…

Lucas pulled out his phone and checked, only to frown and reveal that it was a Wednesday.

"Oh, yeah, that won't be complicated at all…" Maya sighed, suddenly bummed out at the loss of their perfect date. Lucas kept looking at his calendar, shifting the view to the whole year, to get a better idea. After a few seconds, he nodded to himself.

"September 3rd," he offered. She turned her head to look at him. "Third day, ninth month… three by three is nine, three of us… And it's a Sunday." Her smile returned. "Weird and amazing?" he guessed.

"Definitely," she reached for his hand so he'd lie down with her and she could hold him closer. "September 3rd…" she repeated, letting it become something more, a date of new importance. Their baby would be nearly three months old by then, which was wild to think about… and they would get married.

They waited to reveal the date that evening, as Maya's family was coming over for Christmas dinner already. They hadn't planned on going into the whole move back to Austin situation, but then as soon as the date had become a thing a conversation had started about venues, and other necessary services, and it became clear that their families – save for Katy Hart – assumed all this would be happening in Houston still. All of a sudden, they had to clarify.

"We're getting married here, in Austin," Lucas told them.

"Because we'll be living back here by then," Maya added.

This revelation was met with some surprise, although on the whole it was clear to both Lucas and Maya that what their parents truly felt was relief, knowing their son and daughter would be much closer when the baby was born. Once that relief had been processed, of course, they had to remind themselves of the further implications. What was the plan, was there a plan? Maya and Lucas looked to one another. This was exactly what they had expected, wasn't it? But then they'd had a few conversations already, specifically so they'd have at least something to tell them in response.

So, they told their families what they could tell them… so far. They were going to stay in Houston until the end of the following semester, finishing out their second year. After this, they would relocate back to Austin, where they would move into Pappy Joe's old house, which had been handed over to Lucas the day of his high school graduation. After that, Maya would take the following year to look after the baby, after which she would look for a job, and she would enroll back in school, only out here. In the meantime, Lucas would be transferring for the coming fall's semester, continuing on with his studies, while also finding a job, more likely two.

The way their parents looked at them, once they'd shared this much, it felt like they were impressed at least that they'd given it this much thought, but also they were realizing what this would mean for them in the long run, having to start over. Even if they were returning to their hometown, where they knew plenty of people, where their families were, it would still be a big deal for them, and it would be sacrifices and hard work. Neither Lucas nor Maya seemed in any way daunted by this, they looked ready, determined, because of course they were. For their baby, their sprout, there wasn't even a second thought.

"We… we need to be here, to raise the baby here, with you guys," Maya finally explained, the motivation settling over their parents with smiles. "So, that's what we're going to do."

There was no attempt made whatsoever to ever try and settle the twins in the guest room, knowing that they wouldn't do well with an unfamiliar space, so Nellie and Gracie settled in between Maya and Lucas as they went to sleep that night, and every night that they would stay with them at the Friar house. It was hardly the first time they'd slept with a small child or two between them in the last couple of years, but it truly felt like something new all of a sudden, with the baby growing, Maya's body changing along with it… With Nellie snug in her arms, Maya just couldn't stop thinking about a time, half a year away, where she would hold a sleeping child that was her own. She would look to Lucas, who had Gracie in much the same way, and she'd know he felt it, too. The anticipation, the long wait for the sprout.

The next few days got to show them both more of what they had both anticipated, now that their parents all knew about the pregnancy. There had been a lot of talk about what she had or hadn't been eating, what she had or hadn't been doing, and through it all Maya had been much more open than resistant to the questions. She was confident in what she had been doing, and she would change if she believed she should, but all the same she wouldn't let herself get pushed into doing something she wasn't confident about. So long as she held her ground, she knew, all would be well.

"Admit it, you're starting to feel anxious about going back to Houston," Lucas told her, the morning they drove off to look at the house. Maya seemed intent not to look at him, which told him all he needed to know.

"You know I love them all, your mom, your dad, Pappy Joe, but I think it's possible I'll love them a little more when we're not under the same roof from morning to night with one or the other asking me about one thing or another at every turn." Lucas bit back a laugh.

As they neared the house, taking familiar turns Lucas had known for as long as he'd lived, it felt very strange, he had to admit, to think that they were now going to be driving down here to go to the place they would soon call home, that, in years to come, their son or daughter would become familiar with these same roads.

"When's the last time you came here?" Maya asked, as they could see the house up ahead.

"I haven't been here since we moved to Houston, I think. Not sure anyone's been out here either, except maybe my dad."

"So… it's all just been sitting here for two years and some, out of use?" Maya looked at him, and he understood what she meant. As they pulled up and got out of the car, they approached the house and found it looking more or less as it would, after all this time. From the exterior they could already see a serious need for a lawnmower, clippers, whatever it would take to make it look a bit less… out in the woods to go see your granny until suddenly a wolf appeared. It was winter now, and there was a light dusting of snow, but on the whole the place looked wild.

The structure was sound, no doubt to it, strong even, but in need of a whole lot of tending. Maya had been here before, many times, back in the day, she still remembered what it could look like, which was a good thing. Now she also had to look through both the memory and the current state, to find within all this what the home would look like once it would be hers, and her future husband's, and their unborn child.

When Lucas had unlocked the door and led her in, the need became even more of a challenge.

"I mean, don't get me wrong, I love me a good haunted house, but at the end of the day…" Maya breathed, immediately receding into sneezes as she got dust for her troubles.

"You okay?" Lucas asked as she pulled the collar of her shirt up over her nose and mouth to ensure it wouldn't happen again. She held up her thumb. Covering up just as she'd done, Lucas looked around.

He remembered being here when they'd seen to 'closing' the house, knowing no one would be here for a while, remembered putting up a lot of the covers over various pieces of furniture himself. Somehow though, after all this time, it looked a lot different, like they were surrounded by so many bedsheet ghosts.

"Maybe we shouldn't move any of those right now," he turned back to Maya, finding she had moved to look at a picture on the wall. The glass was a bit dusty, but as he joined her he only had to get one short glimpse to know what she'd be looking at. Six-year-old Lucas sat up on a horse, a man stood nearby. Even with his back turned, there was no mistaking Pappy Joe.

"I don't care what we do to this place, this stays right here," she turned back to him, a smile in her eyes even as the rest of her face remained hidden.

"Sounds good," he agreed.

They walked through the rest of the house, bit by bit, finding much of that same disuse. Lucas found himself absently cataloguing the things they'd need to do, the things they'd need to replace… Some things were in need of replacement long before Pappy Joe had moved in with them.

As they progressed up the stairs, they came upon the master bedroom, what had once been his grandparents' room up until his grandmother had passed. After that, his grandfather had just moved into what had once been a guest room, so the master looked like even more of a museum, of a time even more remote. Still, it had been tended to for a long time, that much was clear.

"He won't mind if we use it?" Maya had to ask.

"I think he'd insist we do," Lucas told her.

There were three bedrooms in total, all of them sizable, and Maya surprised herself, thinking immediately of a time some years down the road where they might have more children to occupy the space, when the first was still so small inside her, just about fourteen weeks…

When they finally walked back outside, a deep gulp of fresh air felt about as good as they could expect it to. For a while they stood together, looking up at the house.

"Once the dust and cobwebs are gone, it'll be easier to really know what we have to do," Maya nodded.

"I'll take care of that," Lucas told her. "You've got that museum thing with Professor Robinson, day after tomorrow, I can get a few of the others and we'll come back." There was no point arguing that she'd want to help, on this part at least she was plenty at ease to sit out.

"And once that's done?" she asked.

"We'll see. We've got a few months left, we can work through it, bit by bit, room by room, yeah?" he looked down to her and she nodded for a few seconds in silence before speaking.

"Yeah," she smiled. She could almost see it now, if she looked hard, opened her mind's eye… This would be their home. They were fortunate, she could recognize that much. This house had more or less been handed to them, dropped in their laps without having to pay a thing, and they would make good use of it.

The next day had seen a visit from the Hillards of Houston, all of them forced to do their best not to disrupt too much of the cleaning done by the Friars in anticipation of Professor Robinson's visit the next day, which had shifted from a simple pick up to a night spent up in the guest room. Maya had been exempted from assisting in this cleaning, on Melinda's orders, though she'd still found a way to help in ways that would not set off 'Nanny Melly's' alarms of exertion.

"She knows I'm still working and going to school and all that, right?" Maya had asked Pappy Joe as the two of them sat at the kitchen table shelling peas for dinner.

"I wouldn't let her hear you say that if I were you," Pappy Joe chuckled. "She might not let you go back to Houston at the end of the week," he told her, nudging a couple of peas to Nellie and Gracie, sitting across from him. The twins smiled, reaching their small fingers over and rolling the peas back and forth along the surface of the table. When Nellie's pea rolled right off the edge, she gasped and hopped off her chair to retrieve it. "Easy now," Pappy Joe leaned forward to look under the table. "I know one little boy a long time ago who bumped his head so many times under there it's a wonder he still doesn't see birds flying around his head." Maya bit back a laugh at that.

Once Nellie had returned topside without incident, she had been made to swear not to eat the thing, even though privately both Maya and Joe both trusted in Melinda Friar's clean floors as being flawless.

"So, tell me about this professor of yours. She's your favorite?" Pappy Joe asked as the shelling resumed.

"Don't go saying that anywhere near Mr. Matthews, he'll probably try and go teach over there just to make sure he holds the title," Maya shook her head, making the man laugh. "But yeah, she's just… She's got that whole 'I would listen to her read the phone book to me' thing going, you know?"

"I've met one or two of those," he nodded.

"She's friends with this old teacher, he taught both my dad and Riley's parents from the time they were kids up through college."

"That long, yeah?" Pappy Joe laughed in surprise.

"Why do you think I still expect Matthews to just show up?" Maya nodded.

When the Hillards had come over, it had been their turn to learn of Lucas and Maya's impending parentage, most of them at least. It hadn't been hard to figure out that Joseph somehow knew already, which in turn narrowed down the choices as to how he'd come by the information. Rosa had been the one to tell him. She hadn't planned to, and in fact she'd been very angry with herself for accidentally telling him, making him swear on the spot that he wouldn't tell a soul.

They had offered to bring Rosa along with them to Austin a few weeks back, when they'd learned her mother would be out of Houston for a while over the holidays. She'd accepted at first, but then just as soon had backed out, pointing out that it would be a pretty busy couple of weeks for them, and she would only be in the way. So, she had taken up her mother's initial option and gone to stay with Pete from the bookstore, spending the holidays with him and his family until her mother would return. She had however spent Christmas with the Hillards, where the big accidental reveal had occurred.

"So, what's the plan for tomorrow?" Maya asked later that night, after their guests had gone on their way. The twins already slept at the heart of the bed, waiting for their 'side people' to join them.

"We're going to the house and clearing out the dusts and…" Lucas started to say, like he figured she already knew. Maya shook her head, stopping him.

"No, I know that part, I meant more after, when you all walk back out of there like so many giant dust bunnies, and then you want to just come back here, in all your dusty glory, in the house that you all worked so hard to clean and wouldn't let me help, while Professor Robinson is still here?" He blinked.

"Right…" he breathed. "Good catch." She grinned. "Well… We'll have to go and shower at one of the others' houses before I come back here."

"Good plan," she nodded. "Now, the night after tomorrow…"

"New Year's Eve," he smiled.

"I want to spend it there," Maya told him. "At the house, just you and… us," she gestured to herself. "I want us to start the year there."

The thought of this just filled him with the glow of such a smile. He couldn't help it. He was ready for their future, and anytime he was given cause to celebrate it… The end of this year and the start of the next would mark such a transition for the two of them, how could he not want to spend it just as she did.

"Our own private eve," he moved over to her, wrapping his arms around her. "If they still do it, there was this one guy not too far from Pappy Joe's house who'd send up fireworks every New Year's Eve. All we had to do was sit on the porch and watch."

"Even better," Maya beamed, her plan already vastly improved, as he leaned in to kiss her.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners