Disclaimer: I don't own Boy Meets World.

Chapter 1

"Isn't part of college supposed to be—oh, I don't know—moving out?" Cory's raised voice drifted down the stairs.

"Yes. Yes it is," came Eric's response. "But being stuck on a deserted island with no postal service or anything kind of ruined my chances of getting housing. Tough luck, Cor. You'll just have to wait another year to have the room to yourself."

"No, Eric. I've waited sixteen and a half years. That's enough."

Alan rubbed his temples. The smell of his coffee was heaven. As amazing as it was, though, he could already tell it just wouldn't be strong enough for him this morning. The two boys had just made it down the steps and were on their way over to join him.

He thanked Amy when she set a plate of breakfast in front of him. She joined him at the table after setting all of the plates out. That's one thing that had changed. They had been so used to eating every meal together when they were stuck on the island that the habit just stuck once they returned. He knew Amy tried to get them to do that for years. It's just sad it took going through everything they did for it to actually happen.

"Morning mom, morning daddy," Morgan said. Alan leaned over to return her brief hug before going back to his coffee.

"So?" Eric said. "Morgan had her own room for over ten years and now she has to share."

"Yeah, but Dani's cool. I'd want the room to myself too if I had to live with either of you two losers," Morgan said.

Eric gave a mock laugh. Cory gave an indignant "hey."

"Where is Dani?" Amy asked.

Morgan shrugged. "She slept in, so she's running late. Should be down soon."

Dani, the teen who had been stuck on the island with them as well, had come to live with them once they got home. She had grown up in the foster care system. Her latest foster parent screw-ups—Gary and Ellie Wilson—were the ones responsible for robbing Alan and his family and then causing the plane to crash. Alan and Amy hadn't officially adopted her, not yet anyways. The teen insisted they wait to see how things went before they made any permanent commitments. She was probably still afraid they would change their minds about wanting her there. For as sure as she was when dealing with stressful situations that most other people would struggle to deal with, she was really insecure when it came to her abilities.

It was still an adjustment to get used to the fact supernatural things existed. Dani was living proof they did. Once events on the island forced the girl to stop hiding all her secrets, they found out she was telekinetic, telepathic, and clairvoyant. Alan still wasn't sure what he thought about all of that, but Dani was still just a kid. She just happened to have these special abilities most people didn't.

Of course, she had also hinted there was more to her secret than anyone of them knew yet. He really wasn't sure what to think about that. He was almost afraid to find out.

"Can't you rent an apartment or something?" Cory asked Eric.

"I dunno." Eric shrugged. "I figured I could just stay here for now. Get in on the housing stuff next year."

Alan said, "Of course. You'll always have a place here with us," at the same time Amy said, "I think renting an apartment sounds like a great idea." The two looked at one another. He could already feel the discussion coming on later. The coffee definitely wasn't strong enough.

Dani slid into the final seat at the table, her hand was covering her mouth in a futile attempt to hide a big yawn.

"Honey, you look exhausted," Amy said.

A look was shared between Morgan and Dani. Wonder what that was about.

"I was up late studying last night. Big test today," Dani said.

"No, there's not," Cory said. "We have pretty much all the same classes. I think I would know."

"It's the final test for me to pass my sophomore year and officially become a junior."

George had been nice enough to work something out with her to allow her to continue on in her education rather than repeat her whole sophomore year. She had missed the last few months of it thanks to the Wilsons. She just had some extra work and exams to do.

"That's good. Let us know how it goes," Amy said.

"I thought you already finished that." Cory's brow was scrunched up.

Morgan darted another look over at Dani. The other girl didn't return it this time.

"Almost finished it," Dani corrected.

Alan was almost tempted to ask what all the looks between Morgan and Dani were about, but he didn't have the patience to work through all the different variations of "It's complicated" that were bound to come up—that's if Dani even backed down enough to admit there actually was something to those looks. He'd have a better chance of getting a straight answer out of Morgan. That answer would undoubtedly just lead to more questions only Dani could answer, though.

A honk sounded from outside.

Morgan jumped up out of her seat. "Thanks for breakfast. Gotta go." She sped out the door, barely even stopping to grab her backpack on the way.

Eric pushed his chair away from the table. "I should head out too. Class started about—eh—ten minutes ago."

"Eric," both Alan and Amy scolded.

"What? It's a general course. The teacher doesn't care. Most people don't even bother to show up at all," he said while backing up towards the door. "See ya."

Alan shook his head at the door after Eric closed it. Sometimes he really worried about him.

Both Cory and Dani said their thanks before heading out the door as well.

Alan sipped his coffee.

They were all still adjusting to life after the island. It was so easy to just fall back into their old routines once they returned home, but it all felt different . . . strange. After having to search for food and water, catch fish, search for edible plant life, prepare everything from scratch and work hard for everything, it was weird to be able to just go to a store or a restaurant and already have a good bit, if not all, of the work done for them. After sleeping on the hard ground under the stars every night with the sound of the waves and wildlife around them, the soft mattress, pillows, and blankets they had with the constant hum of everything electronic in the background were so foreign. Then, of course, compared to being chased, caught, shot at, and held hostage—not to mention fighting their captors and getting away—working at a wilderness store was just so dull in comparison. He would gladly take dull over what they went through this past summer, though. He never wanted to deal with anything like that ever again.

It did change how he handled things at the store, though. Before he was content to just run the store, sell the products, and merely help his customers find the products that best suited their needs. He never gave any consideration to how his customers could handle survival situations that could arise out in the wild—not until he and his family, both biological and extended, were thrown into a survival situation and had no clue how to handle it. One of the first orders of business he took care of when he went back to work was to use some of the money left over from the lottery to start up a survival training program at the store. He required all of his employees to attend at least one session each month, and highly recommended these classes to all of his customers at a discounted rate. He wanted to make it free of charge. Business didn't really allow for that, though.

As for the lottery money, the Wilsons had only been able to take what everyone had in their wallets on the plane, and since their getaway boat had been shipwrecked on the island too, the credit and bank cards really didn't do them any good. Alan reported his cards as stolen as soon as they returned home. Gary Wilson had died on the island, and Ellie Wilson was put away in prison for a long time once the long list of her crimes happened to make it into the police's hands. The prison sentence time for each of the crimes stacked up incredibly high to the point where it was unlikely she would see the light of day outside of the prison ever again.

As a result, they still had a considerable amount of money left over from their multimillion dollar winning lottery ticket. None of them wanted any parts of it, though. Not after what happened. They'd be fools to not make use of some of it, but they didn't want to keep excessive amounts of it around. They kept some money for their kids' college funds and to cover the extra expenses they would have with Dani living with them. Some more of it went towards the survival training program he started at the wilderness store, another chunk went to John and Shawn to help pay for Shawn's college expenses when that time came and also to help them buy a house or pay the rent—whatever they decided to do when they moved—and the rest went to various charities, both well-known and not-so-well-known.

Amy's sigh from beside him jerked Alan out of his thoughts.

"I don't want Eric to move out either," she said, "especially after what we went through this summer, but if he doesn't move out, he'll never grow up."

"Does it have to be now? You heard him. He just wants to wait till next year. Then he'll move out," Alan said.

"And then next year, he will just find another excuse to stay here."

Alan sighed. He knew she was right, even if he didn't want to admit it.

"It will be easier if he leaves now. The longer he keeps trying to prolong living here, the harder it will be when he does leave," Amy said.

Sometimes he hated when his wife was right.

Alan rubbed his temple and took a large gulp of his coffee. He had to be at the store soon. The rest of this talk could wait till later. He leaned over to kiss his wife. "Thanks for breakfast, honey. Delicious as always."

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Shawn jotted down some of the thoughts running through his head about the island—tried to make it look like he was taking notes on John's lecture. John hadn't called him out on it, so it seemed like he was succeeding. He really didn't want to think about the island or that wannabe-Indiana-Jones-ancient-structure place or anything surrounding any of that. He couldn't help it, though. Flashbacks of what he went through—the plane crash, the hostage situation leading up to the crash and then again later after they were caught on the island, and the insane quest-like adventure to get to that urn—would hit him at the most random times—mostly of the insane quest-like adventure. All he could do is jot down his thoughts. Try to turn them into something creative. That's the only way he was able to get them out of his head.

He guessed the added bonus of dealing with it this way was that it made it look like he was actually paying attention in class. All he had to do was glance up at the front of the room every now and then.

He caught John's eye when he glanced up again. All it took was that one look for Shawn to be able to tell he was busted. John wasn't buying it. Damn. Oh well. John knew he was struggling to deal with everything that happened. They'd talked about it. He didn't think he'd be in too much trouble over this once he told him what he was doing and why. John always got a really uncomfortable look on his face anytime Shawn talked about the urn-hunt.

"Uh, Mr. Turner," Cory's voice rang out. "We already did this assignment. In seventh grade."

"Auto-biography, Matthews. As in, you write about your own life rather than someone else's," John said. "I'm not looking for full life stories here, just pick some meaningful time in your life and write about it."

The bell rang.

Shawn shoved his poetry notebook and his class notebook in his bag.

"Ten pages. Due this Friday," Mr. Turner yelled over the talking.

Shawn slung his backpack over his one shoulder and slipped out the classroom door before John could stop him. He didn't want to talk right now.

"You want to know what I'm going to write about?" Cory asked him. "Go ahead. Ask." He sounded irritated.

"Okay, Cor." Shawn shoved his English stuff in his locker, pulled his science crap out and crammed it into his bag. "What are you going to write about?"

"I'm going to write about the glorious day I get my own room 'cause Eric moves out." His voice was thick with sarcasm. "Oh, wait a minute. That's not happening. 'Cause you see, my brother decided he wants to wait until next year to get the full college experience. What gives?"

Shawn slammed the locker door shut and put the lock back on. He shrugged. "Maybe he just needs something familiar after, you know, this summer. What happened and all." That's what he and John had decided. They would still need to find a bigger, better place for the two of them to live, but not yet. Their rat-hole apartment was practically heaven to them after everything. They could move after they adjusted back to life pre-island. Well, it was probably more life post-island, but whatever.

"I get that, but I want my own room now," Cory complained. "He's already been there a year longer than he was supposed to be and dad will let him stay forever, if he wants to."

Shawn wanted to be able to sympathize with Cory, but family staying around too long had never been a problem for him. He wished it was, because then it would mean they actually stuck around. I mean, yeah, he had John and the Matthews and all, and they were great and he in many ways considered them to be more his family than those related to him by blood were, but it wasn't really the same as having actual blood relatives around.