She's Having My Baby: A 12 Days of Christmas Special

Chores

December 14th

"Lucas! Lucas, get in here now! Quick!" Maya screamed from her living room.

She heard something fall over with a loud bang and then saw the bathroom door knob jiggling from the inside. Lucas burst out of the bathroom, buttoning his pants as he ran to her.

"What?! What is it?" he insisted.

"Look at April! She's crawling!" Maya pointed with extreme pride.

Lucas looked at his daughter and sure enough, there she was slowly putting one arm in front of the other and scooting her little body along the floor. He marveled at her for a significant amount of time before turning back to Maya.

"You almost gave me a heart attack. I thought someone was dead!"

"Well I didn't want you to miss it! Isn't she amazing?" Maya asked dreamily.

Lucas's annoyance melted away at those words. He watched Maya watch their daughter and felt nothing but happiness. He had never seen her look at anyone the way she looked at April, not even him.

"I'm telling you, this kid's going places. By the way Huckleberry, your fly is down," she said, nudging Lucas's arm.

Lucas laughed, embarrassed. He looked down at his daughter and then at Maya. The resemblance was uncanny. The small frame, the big blue eyes, the small lips. He could've sworn he saw a tear form in the corner of Maya's eye, but it was quickly brushed away and forgotten. April soon got tired of crawling and let herself flop on the floor. Maya picked her up and sat down on the couch with her.

"I can't believe how fast she's growing up," Maya said as she bounced her daughter up and down.

"I know. Listen, now that the moment's over, can I go pee?"

"Sure," Maya laughed. "I'm gonna feed her and put her down for the night."

"I'll be in in a minute."

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After rocking her for a while, Maya set April down in her crib. She was shocked that April had gone down so easily, considering it had taken hours to get her to go to sleep the past few days. Maya sat on her bed, staring at her baby, waiting for Lucas to come check on them.

Maya's mother had eventually just accepted the fact that Lucas and Maya would have to be in the house alone together a lot. Lucas was there most nights and hardly ever brought April to his place. He and Maya still considered themselves "just friends", but it was definitely far from easy.

"Is she asleep?" Lucas whispered, awestruck.

Maya nodded.

He sat on the bed next to her and put his arm around her. She laid her head on his shoulder and they sat in silence for a while.

"I'm exhausted," Maya whispered eventually.

"Want me to go?" Lucas whispered back.

"No, but I do want you to help me with all the stuff I still have to do before I can go to sleep."

They tiptoed out of the Maya's room and back into the living area. Maya started doing dishes and asked Lucas to dry them and put them away.

"By the way, Riley can't have the Christmas party at her place anymore, so it's gonna be at my house," Lucas told Maya while he dried the first dish.

"I don't even know if I'll go," Maya replied.

"What? Why not?"

"It's just a lot of effort. I have to find an outfit and someone to watch April and it's really just too much of a production."

"Why don't you just take April with you?" Lucas asked.

"Oh please Lucas, I'm not gonna take my eight month old baby to a party," Maya scoffed.

She passed him another dish and he continued drying.

"Why not? It's not like anyone's gonna be drinking or anything. We can bring her stuff over so you can put her down when she gets tired. Maybe she could even spend the night with me for a change," Lucas suggested.

Maya stopped scrubbing and raised an eyebrow.

"Really? You'd be up for that?"

"I think it's about time. I mean, there's bound to be times when I need to take care of her for a few days at a time if you're not around. I think I'm ready."

"That's really great Lucas, but I still don't think the party thing is a good idea," Maya said.

"Why not? It's just people from school!"

"Exactly," Maya muttered under her breath.

Now it was Lucas that stopped drying his dish.

"Wait a minute. I see what this is. You're embarrassed about her. You don't want people from school to see her. Is that what it is?" Lucas asked.

Maya said nothing and continued passing him dishes.

"Maya, people know we have a kid whether you show her to them or not."

Maya finished washing the last dish. She dried her hands and and the folded her arms around her.

"Alright Lucas, listen for a second. We have a beautiful, perfect, sweet little daughter and I could not be more proud of her. Did you see her crawling today? She's fantastic! But she's not the problem. It's me. I feel self-conscious when people see me with her and think she's my baby sister. I wish I didn't, but I do. I just don't like reminding people at school that I'm a teen mom, that's all."

Lucas put away the last few dishes and then hugged Maya tightly.

"I know it's hard. I know people look at you differently now and that's never gonna change. But you can't hide from people forever. You're a mom now. It's always gonna be a part of who you are. You need to accept that, you know?" Lucas explained.

"Yeah, I know."

"Will you think about the party?" Lucas requested.

"I'll think about it."

They watched TV while Maya folded laundry and Lucas wrapped Christmas presents Maya had bought for people.

"Who are these for?" Lucas asked.

He held up a box of pink Hello-Kitty Band-Aids.

"Those are for Riley," Maya answered simply.

"Why'd you buy her Band-Aids?"

"Because she's always trying to fix people's problems. And also she falls down a lot."

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When it was finally time to go to sleep, Maya set up the couch for Lucas. He sat down as she flung the a pillow at him and turned off the TV.

"I'm going into work for two hours in the morning so I won't be here when you wake up," Lucas reminded Maya.

"Okay. I'm gonna get April up and dressed before I go to school so Mom doesn't have to."

"See you at school then?" Lucas asked.

"See you at school!" Maya said with fake enthusiasm.

"Goodnight," Lucas smiled.

"Goodnight."
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A/N: Hope you liked the first chapter! The first few days are just gonna be a kind of introduction to Lucas & Maya's life right now. Stay tuned for the next 12 days!