A/N: Happy New Year everyone! Today marks the start of my fourth year of this Lucaya Project. This year's project will be a sequel to last year's story, carrying right along with the narrative of "A Hart in Texas" and "Our Brand New Years," and like these past two years, there will be one new chapter a day. Hope you enjoy it!

"ENDINGS, BEGINNINGS, AND THE JOURNEY IN BETWEEN"
Sequel to "Our Brand New Years"

January 1st 2019

Chapter 1
Their Home in the Morning

Maya looked around her room, and the impression it left her was that it had not looked so much like a basement since before she'd moved down here and they'd turned the room upstairs into the nursery. There was a great stack of boxes in the corner, piles of disassembled furniture, and her mattress was against the wall, waiting to be picked up by one of her mother's coworkers.

She would be sleeping on the ground tonight, in her old sleeping bag. She could have slept on the couch, could have kept the bed where it had been, but this felt right. It would be her last night living here, and this was how she wanted to spend it.

The last pile held items still in their boxes, or packed in bags… The new things, for the house, for the room…

The last few weeks, since their return from Europe, had been non-stop preparations for the move. It was as exhausting as it was exhilarating. The five of them who would be sharing the house in Houston, Riley, Dylan, Sophie, Lucas and herself, had split the cost of purchases for the house. Their families had contributed, too, no way around it, but then they knew there were times when they could hardly refuse. On the whole, they were happy for how they'd fared.

And there were things for her room, too… her and Lucas together.

The way her parents were going on about it, she would have thought she might be more fretful about the whole thing… moving in with her boyfriend, sharing a room with someone else… but she really wasn't. She was ready for it, she was excited. Maybe it was that they'd been looking forward to it for so long, and now… she just wanted it to happen already, wanted to start and end her days with him, just as she'd done over their trip.

As though he'd felt her thinking about him, her phone gave off the tone of an incoming Skype call.

"I live in storage," she declared as his face appeared, and he smiled at once. "Look," she held out her arm, moving her phone around for him to see her surroundings.

"Reminds me of the night we all came in to redecorate," he responded.

"Right?" she agreed, pulling the phone back so he could see her again. "I'm tired, everything hurts, and I should shower but I don't want to," she frowned, giving a solid pout of exhaustion. "How's it going on your end?" He gave a pronounced sigh. "Oh, that bad?" she couldn't help but smirk, knowing full well what this would be about.

"Mom's trying to come off like she's fine, but whenever she comes near me she looks like she's a second away from bursting into tears. It made packing feel like I was only making her worse."

"I'm sorry," she told him, earnest though she still chuckled.

"I'm finally done though," he went on, giving his one sweeping show of the room around him.

"Wow…" she blinked. Somehow, seeing her room grow emptier and ready to go hadn't affected her near as much as to see his room, which had been something of a standard in her life for the past six years, appear as bare as it looked now.

His walls had been cleared, his desk was ready to be moved… The two beds were going to stay, one of them returning to where it had once belonged, in the guest room, while Lucas' bed, she knew, would remain just as it was, as Mrs. Friar insisted that her son should always have his bed to come back to when he'd visit. Some of the furniture would remain, but other items, things he wouldn't take along, was already gone, and all in all… it wasn't his room anymore.

This was it. It was really happening. They were moving in the morning.

"What?" he asked, the smile on his face echoing the one growing over her features.

"I'm just… I can't wait for tomorrow," she revealed.

"Neither can I," he tipped his head.

"Can't we just take off for Houston tonight? We have the keys," she pointed out with a pleading look.

"It's just a few more hours," he insisted, and she gave an exaggerated sigh.

"Patience is so overrated."

The house was ready for them. They'd been out there a few times, including one weekend of wall painting, small repairs, and city exploration. Appliances were in place, the great U-shaped sofa, too, and the new double bed that was to replace their respective single beds while the others brought their own… The rest would be loaded on to a moving truck which was to relay its way from the Zvolensky, Orlando, Matthews, Friar, and Hunter-Hart homes the next day. That truck wouldn't arrive until the day after, as they'd been told, but that was fine by them. The idea of their first night in their new home being something like a sleepover was all too fitting.

It was not hard to want to get a move on with their relocation. Already the others had departed, Nadine and Zay off to Boston, Asher, Joey and Rebecca to New York, leaving the five of them soon to be Houston-bound behind. Everyone else had gotten their start, so why couldn't they?

"You'll make it. I believe it," Lucas insisted, bringing her back out of her thoughts.

"This whole unconditional faith thing is really sweet, I just worry you'll be let down sooner or later," she beamed. "We're going to be living together now, imagine all the weird little things you'll find out about me," she whispered.

"Bring it on," he whispered back, and she went on smiling, lying down on her sleeping bag, phone held aloft. "How are your parents doing?" he asked.

"My dad's been feeding me stories from when he was in college. Can't decide if he's trying to give me some cautionary tale or if he's just reminiscing. And Mom's trying to pass off her teary eyes on the baby… We're not buying it, but we're pretending like we are, so if you see her tomorrow…"

"Heard," he vowed, hand to his heart and everything.

He wasn't going to ask about her sisters. He knew well enough that, though she wasn't looking forward to being parted from her parents any more than from two-year-old Nellie and Gracie, it simply wasn't the same kind of goodbye. Whether he had heard it from Maya herself or seen it from their interactions, he knew she worried greatly over how they would cope with this separation.

They were too little, they couldn't understand, no matter how much they saw of the preparations for the departure, that their big sister was going to be moving away, that they wouldn't see her every day, wouldn't see her at all for days and possibly weeks on end, and he knew how Maya worried for how they would react to her absence. She would be off in Houston for the better part of their lives until they'd be six, and after that, who knew?

He would remind her that she only had to look to how their reunion had gone at the airport, when their flight had arrived back in Texas. As soon as the little brunettes had spotted Maya, their legs had made to run so much that Shawn and Katy had no choice but to set them on the ground, at which point the twin rockets had sped teetering off into their sister's waiting arms. He knew it would be different this time, that this was going to be permanent, with the three sisters no longer living under the same roof, but at heart it was the same principle… There was not the slightest cause for concern that affection and love between them would change, regardless of where she lived.

"What about you, how are you doing?" she asked then, with a look like she was feeling that she was commandeering the conversation when she wanted to know just as much of his side of things. He let out a breath, looking around his room, or what remained of it.

This had been his room, his home, all his life. He'd feel like he was lying to himself if he said a part of him wasn't affected by the thought of leaving it behind. For all the ups and downs of his life up to this moment, this room, this house, had been a constant, and his parents… No matter how much it had delayed him, Lucas had never turned away his mother whenever she came with her barely concealed tears. Truth be told, the reason why it had delayed him so much was that he had indulged her, every time. And his father, and his grandfather… and Dash…

"I'm reminding myself that, although I'm leaving something behind, I'm also moving toward something I've been looking forward to, something worthy of that sacrifice," he told his girlfriend, and her smile was all the proof he needed.

They said goodbye until the next morning, and Maya let out a breath, lying on the basement floor, staring up at the ceiling. She could hear them, if she stayed quiet. It was bath time for the twins, which was always a two-person job if you didn't want to have to go at them one by one, and she could hear them squealing along, splashing about, which their mother and father tried to wrangle them. Nellie was notorious for having skidded off butt naked one day, leaving a trail of water as she went. Her mad caper had been brought to an end on the introduction of the floor. She'd fallen and proceeded to screech her head off. She now sported the tiniest mark on her chin.

She could hear them up there, just as she could hear the dogs down here with her, letting out these small whimpers like they just knew she was about to leave them. She tried and failed not to hear it, like some great canine guilt trip.

"Hey, it's no easier for me, you know?" she sighed, turning her head to look over at them. Queen pulled herself up and padded over, leaning her big fluffy head forward to bury her mistress in kisses. "Dirty trick!" Maya laughed, closing her eyes as she reached up to give the dog some scratches. Refusing to miss out on this, Tuck and Ghost had come forward at once, crowding around until Maya had no choice but to sit up and attend to them. It really wasn't fair, having to leave them, too.

Her little house wouldn't be so little for much longer. Already, it was changing. Work on the expansion had started, slowly but surely, in the last few weeks, even as she was getting ready to leave, though she knew her parents had been waiting until after her move to really push into high gear. It was just as Lucas had predicted, and now it was coming ever closer to a realization. They were tearing the roof off, they were building not just a second floor but an attic, too, and it all felt like something she couldn't have envisioned but all the same… she was okay with it.

The expansion bore the promise of their family's roots in Austin. The house would grow, even as they were growing. And even if it wouldn't be the place where she lived anymore, she knew one thing as sure as she knew the love she shared with her parents, her sisters, those three dogs, and the baby as yet unborn in her mother's belly. She would always have a place here. That was the truth she would carry along with her, squeezing it tight on those rainy days where she missed her people and her old home…

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners