Time flies, Maya concludes, when she's standing on the porch of her small daycare center. Her first drop off for the day is a young lady named Chelsea, ironically enough a bombastic blonde girl with as much energy and aspiration as Maya at her age. She's ready for kindergarten, she swears it every single morning, but Peyton sometimes whispers in Maya's ear before he races of to the bus stop at the end of the driveway, "She would be in time-out before she sat down, mama."

Maya doesn't doubt it.

"Today is the last day of school!" Peyton shouts as he races from the playground to hug his mom once more before getting on the bus. Tears threaten her eyes. Baby Puf had grown so quickly into Peyton Uriah, the stern boy who always followed the rules but never ceased to find an unconventional way of getting things done. He was every bit the best parts of Lucas and Maya Friar that he could be – and better somehow, just the way kids are supposed to be.

Maya grins, thinking about how Peyton will be turning six soon. Has it really been six years? She doesn't feel as though it has but she cannot deny that there's been a passage of time. Howe else did her baby boy get so big? "Are you excited?"

"Oh yes, mama, very much!" he wails while running circles, right up until he notices the bus arrives. Chelsea is usually here by now and he knows it. He pauses and looks up to Maya with worry in his face. "Where is Chelsea, mama?"

Cautiously, she squats down to get level with her son. "She's probably running late. Sometimes there's morning traffic. You'll see her after school, okay?" Peyton nods his head, unsure if he should believe her, and then kisses her nose. He runs to the bus in a flurry and leaves just as quickly as Maya blinks.

Maya keeps checking the watch she's become accustomed to wearing. Ten and fifteen and twenty minutes pass, and still not Chelsea. Finally, Maya calls Lucas to come over while she goes inside to call Lenore, Chelsea's mother, about why they're running late. Lucas's business hours don't start for two more hours, and since she likes to greet the kids at the front door.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

"Hello, Lenore, this is Maya Hart from Hart's Happy Hangout. I was just calling because Chelsea isn't here yet and I wanted to make sure that you're doing okay," Maya speaks calmly, doing everything she can to not assume the worst. There's some rustling in the background before Lenore actually replies.

"I'm so sorry, I meant to call last night," she begins, "But I got a job offer out of town that starts on Monday. I've been packing all night and forgot to tell you that Chelsea won't be coming,"

Grateful as she is that Chelsea isn't in danger or hurt, and excited as she is for Lenore to have gotten a job that she seems really excited for, as a mother she cannot help but also feel hurt for her son. Chelsea and Peyton loved playing together after school and chasing each other on the playground. The promise that he'd see her after school now broken, she lets out a faked sigh of relief. "Congratulations, Lenore, I'm so happy for your guys! How far are you going?"

They chat for a few minutes. Apparently this job opportunity was a rare one, allowing her to follow her passion for interior design. Chelsea even hops on the line to tell Maya farewell before they finally end the call with a respectable tone. A glum feeling in her gut settles in for the day and she marches back out into the playroom where at least one or two others will have showed up. Lucas is at the door talking with one of the father's who has his special needs daughter in tow.

"When do you think he'll arrive?" Lucas asks the father in a formal tone. It only takes a second for it to become obvious that they're discussing their adoption. There's mention of a plane ride and some driving but Maya doesn't hear it. She reaches her hand out to the little girl, Kianna, and waits for her to decide to join. Kianna is from the Philippines and was diagnosed with moderate Autism shortly after the adoption was finalized.

Though she's become accustomed to the surroundings of the daycare, her hesitations aren't completely gone. Maya has a routine. The both of them walk a circle around the playroom and then walk to the art room where Kianna prefers to spend her time. An easel with her name across the top in glittery foam letters sits next to the window where she can see outside to the playground.

"Play," she says in a squeaky tone. "Play."

Maya shakes her head, "Not yet. We have to had snack first."

"Then play," she agrees, a smile spread across her face. Kianna grabs her stool from the closet and then sits down at the easel with her crayons in a perfect line across the bottom. Her tiny fingers wrap around her favorite color, a deep green, and she begins scribbling away on the pad of paper. Maya pats her head exactly three times before returning to the front of the house.

Lucas is waving in children who are being dropped off in the driveway by their parents, and Maya is ushering kids away from their cubbies so that they're not tempted to play and socialize where others are trying to unpack and get around for the day. As the last flow of children arrive, with an hour still to spare before Lucas has to start his business day, she leans into his side.

"Do you miss having them this small?" Maya asks, watching her thirteen kids bouncing around the daycare playroom and trickling into the art room freely. They may not be her kids but she plays a vital role in their upbringing. This was never her plan growing up but now it feels so right that she can't imagine doing anything else.

Lucas shrugs, "Sometimes," he decides.

"Do you want another one," she asks just before her twins come over and tug her over the dress up bin. Easily her least favorite thing about kids at this age is that they won't look for anything too hard themselves. Lucas bends down to catch one of the smaller ones trying to sneak into the kitchen. There's a gate to stop them but if there's anything he's learned about children – its' that they're persistent.

"I like us," he shouts back to her, "As long as there's a you and there's a me…"

"Oh," Maya laughs, pulling out the prince and princess costumes the twins were looking for from behind the bin, "It's always going to be us, Mr. Friar."

A/N: And that's a wrap! I can't believe that it ended up taking me such a long time to write this. Around the time I started working on this - I accidentally deleted my Tumblr account and lost all of my readership from there. It's been hard to rebuild that following - and I still haven't regained all of those readers. I had a really hard time getting connected to my fanfiction again. My heart will always belong to fanfiction, and I'll always have a piece of love to share for the GMW fandom, but it's time to close this chapter and move forward. I hope this has been a good read for you - and I hope it lived up to your expectations (if you read the first one) as a sequel. I assure you, in spite of the length of time it took to finish, I had a great time putting this together.

What could have happened - Just like the first fic, there were a great many things I changed and dropped in the writing process. Here's a few of those things that I changed...

~ Zay was never intended to be in this story. When I began writing the outline for this and revealing that Connor had some feelings towards Maya, Lucas' jealous seemed very natural and important - especially considering the events that transpired at the beginning. When Lucas had to call someone that he trusted to intervene and care for Maya, it made more sense he would turn to Zay than Connor, who he was actually jealous of at the time.

~ Maya was going to date someone else while she was broken up with Lucas. I hadn't decided if it was going to be Connor or not, but there was an open opportunity for her to be casually seeing someone mid pregnancy or post birth. I ended up cutting that out because it felt as though it was going to drive a wedge between the master plan which was for Maya and Lucas to gravitate back to one another in a natural way.

~ They were never going to get married. In my outline I wanted Maya to be adamantly against getting married because she was worried about things going south again. I also had it written in that Maya wouldn't give her child the Friar last name. And that was because...

~ Originally, Maya and Lucas weren't going to get back together until well after their child had been born. Maya was going to be raising her child as a single parent with no help from Lucas for nearly a year before they would make amends and give their romance another shot. Again, as the story went on, it seemed unnatural for it to take that long - and as in love as they are, it would make more sense that the closer they got to Maya's due date the more likely they were to get close again.

And finally,

~ Riley was going to move to Texas and announce her engagement and pregnancy with Derek. I ended up cutting much of Riley's time in 'And Then There Was Us,' and it just panned out that way in this story too. With Riley living and working in California, it was just unreasonable for Maya to get support from her from so far away. I tried to show that they're close, and they'll always have a sisterhood, but as I came to the end and started writing Lester's death and Maya's plans to honor his request for the ranch... Squeezing Riley in just felt as if it were dragging out the plot of the story. And my ultimate plan was to get us to the end and work in that very important line - "It's always going to be us" - the title line of the story. At the end of the day this was supposed to be about Lucas and Maya becoming the adults that they'll be for the rest of their lives - together.

Please drop a review if you like what I did here, or even if you wish I'd done something else. Let me know if any of the stuff I cut sounds like something you would have enjoyed reading. We write and read fanfiction because - sometimes - we just think the author got it wrong. It doesn't make us love the product any less, it just means we see things in a new perspective. Your perspective matters.

Thanks for reading, and until the next time

Adieu.