April 9th 2024

Chapter 100
The Night For Family

She had always been able to handle nights with newborns without losing so much of her composure. Were there times, especially when they had the triplets to see to all at once, where the exhaustion and the overstimulation would get to be too much? Of course, but on the whole she had done her best to embrace this time with her children, knowing that there would come a time, much faster than any of them realized, when that period in their lives would be over, and they would miss it terribly. Now here she found herself, losing sleep over what was very likely to be her very last baby, and it had instilled in her an ironclad patience she hoped would hold on through the whole of his infancy.

Colby Friar seemed bent on testing that theory. He would wake up in the night and, regardless of what was troubling him, from hunger to a diaper in need of changing, he would holler loudly enough as to guarantee that everyone in his house, human, dog, or bird, would know it, and possibly anyone up, down, or across the road, too. That might have been exaggerating, but it was enough that, on more than one occasion, Maya had been tempted to take him over to the Hex, allowing the soundproofed space to allow the others to sleep.

"There, now, you're feeling better now, aren't you? No need to show everyone how your little lungs are working, huh? I know our family is very musical, maybe you're trying to get in on that." The way he looked at her now, his face still showing the slightest bit of a tremor from his crying, maybe just hearing her speaking voice was enough to bring him peace, and if that was so, then she would keep on talking for as long as she needed to.

"Not to swoop in when he's not crying anymore, but I think it's time we swap here so you can get some rest," Lucas' voice pulled her from her bubble and she looked over to find him sitting up in bed.

"How long have you been awake?" she asked as she walked over to him and passed the baby into his arms. There was no arguing the need to accept sleep when it was offered to her.

"Not long after the concert started," Lucas reported, smiling as Colby settled in his arms. As Maya got into bed, he got up with the boy, the better to give her space to actually fall asleep. If he stayed with Colby next to her, she'd just keep watch on him instead of closing her eyes.

They had a pretty good system going, him and their Huck. Maya would tease and say that they recognized their shared 'huckleberriness,' and it would help him calm down. Lucas would respond in kind, suggesting that the qualities that had made the two of them inseparable echoed on a mother and son level, too.

"Hey, bud, what are you doing up?" Lucas whispered when he felt something take hold of his leg and looked down to find Ezra staring up at him.

"Is my brother okay?" he asked, and Lucas could confirm that Maya had not fallen asleep yet by the snort he heard.

"Yeah, he's all good, see?" he carefully crouched until Ezra could see him. The boy reached up and took Colby's hand in his, 'gentle-gentle,' like he'd been taught.

"Hi, Hucky!" he whispered and smiled. When the baby reacted to this, Ezra leaned in closer and kissed the side of his head, staying close enough to be in his line of sight.

"Here, hang on," Lucas sat himself down on the floor and tucked the baby in one arm while inviting his older brother to sit in his lap. Once he was there, Lucas slowly moved Colby so he might be held by Ezra and him together. Whether this was a ploy to get both of his sons to fall asleep or not, he wouldn't say. The maneuver that would be required in order to get them all out of this position was the thing he'd have to figure out before very long.

He was 'rescued' by the arrival of one more visitor, this one being one of his sisters-in-law. Haley quietly approached the room and looked inside, and Lucas looked up to find her with a look that was so delighted and regretful that she hadn't brought her phone at the same time to take a picture. Ezra put a finger to his lips, reminding his aunt that she had to be quiet for His Baby Brother. Haley matched him and came up to them, crouching and then crawling over to sit near them. She was so happy to get to be there with her little nephew while she stayed here, and it made them all so happy to see that, to see how she and all her older siblings were excited to be at their sister's house, to be involved in their nieces and nephews' childhoods, but for Haley, they knew, a lot of it came out of the loneliness she'd been left to feel once she'd become the only one of them back home with their parents. She would never get to know what it would have been like to grow up with Maya, no, but this would be the very next best thing.

"Haley? You in there?" a whisper made Lucas, Haley, Ezra, and the 'sleeping' Maya look up to find the very pregnant Nellie had joined them. When she saw the others around the room, she looked like she was debating going back upstairs, but instead she informed them that she was going to the bathroom. A likely story, but then her big sister patted the space next to her and Nellie went to join her at once. "Promise I won't stay long," she told Lucas, who would not argue. Bobby wasn't there tonight, and it stressed her more and more, they knew, with how close she was to having her own baby. Lucas would find somewhere else to sleep if he had to.

"Can we bring your little brother to say hello?" Haley asked her nephew, earning points for the fact that she'd connected him to Ezra directly. He looked up to his father, and Lucas gave him an encouraging nod.

Haley got up, and Ezra allowed her to take Colby, though he immediately got up out of his father's lap to follow as the baby was brought over to Nellie. She was so locked in on her impending delivery that they could practically hear her heart beat faster whenever she got to hold her little nephew. Her smile was as radiant as ever, and it was as good if not better than having Maya at her side as a means of calming her down again. Ezra was helped on to the bed by Haley, and he came to sit right next to Nellie to keep an eye on his baby brother. She brushed at his hair and he came closer. If the goal was for all of them to get back to sleep, they weren't doing so well, but none of them minded.

"Oh, I see how it is, no invites for me?" MJ's voice coming in next felt like a foregone conclusion, enough that none of them were surprised by his joining them.

That didn't stop Ezra or Haley from shushing him and pointing to Colby. MJ displayed he had very much inherited the brow arch here before going ahead and switching to sign language, as though to say 'there, see, I can be discreet.' He had been picking it up more and more for staying at the Friar house, where the whole family had long adopted it, and he would be lovingly teased for the way he signed in a very MJ-like style. He had been learning a lot from Lucy especially, who had taken it upon herself to start teaching Colby very early on.

"Should I just get everyone in here now or are we waiting for them to show up?" he asked, smirking at the look of 'don't you dare' that his sisters gave him, even as Ezra perked up like he thought that was the best idea ever. MJ pointed at his nephew like he was the only one who made sense.

"He's two," Maya reminded him. Ezra looked over at her and she motioned for him to join her, which he quickly did, ending up snuggled up in her arms, falling closer and closer to his elusive sleep.

"We should go," Nellie quietly decided, looking to her younger siblings, looking down to find that Colby had dozed off. Haley sighed, but she agreed, while MJ came up to at least get a moment with his youngest nephew, taking him up and carrying him over to his crib before he escorted his sisters. Gracie was spending the night at Ethan's, though she had wanted to stay with her twin, but now she would have MJ and Haley to help her sleep.

"I'll take him back," Lucas told Maya when he saw that Ezra had fallen asleep and she was not far behind him. She was as reluctant to let him go as he would have been if he'd been awake to see his brother removed from his side, but she allowed Lucas to take the boy and carry him back up the hall to his room.

When Lucas approached, he heard the telltale sounds to suggest that Mackenzie and Aubrey had been awake and about to walk over to their parents' room but, upon hearing him, decided to rush back to their beds and pretend they were sleeping. Lucas started off by getting Ezra tucked back into his bed, but he made a stop at each of the girls' bedsides, leaning to kiss the top of their blonde heads and wishing them a good night all over again. They said nothing - because they were 'asleep' - but he could feel the comfort that his presence brought to them, and it was almost better than a worded reply.

He looked in on the triplets as he walked back to his room, and they at least had gotten back to sleep on their own, rather than walking across the hall, though he suspected this had not been so long ago either. He expected to walk back in and find that Maya was sleeping, and he would soon join her, which might have been brought on by his own exhaustion fooling him. In the time it had taken for him to get Ezra back to his bed and return, Marianne had made her way down from her room and crawled into bed with her mother. Lucas went up to the bed, sitting on his side and staring down at the two of them, one pair of blue eyes closed, sleeping, the other halfway closed, like she was doing her best to look like she was sleeping but wanted to make sure he was buying it.

"Getting a little big to get in here with us, aren't you?" he whispered down at her. She closed her eyes all the way. "Wonder what will happen if I tickle you behind your ear…" he tested, and her hand betrayed her, reaching immediately to cover the 'threatened' area. "Busted, pumpkin."

"I'm not big, I'm just tall," she whispered. He laughed. "Besides, Mom said we would never be too old."

"Yeah, I guess not," he had to agree. "So what brings you here tonight?" he asked. She opened her eyes now, though her hand remained where it was… just in case.

"I heard him crying, I wanted to see him," she shrugged.

"Well, he's asleep now…"

"He's going to wake up again, you know it," she countered. "I can help."

"Maybe we should set you up with a little cot," he joked, which he halfway regretted as soon as he said it, knowing she would do it in a heartbeat. "Let's just agree that this will do for now, yeah?"

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners