Author's Note: Because I have twenty million real life things to do, but this seems a lot more fun. Apparently I've been gone from the FF world so long, that I couldn't even access my account until resetting four sets of passwords. Yet, here I am ^^;. I blame you entirely, Girl Meets Ski Lodge for dragging me onto this impossible ship and rekindling my love for Disney t(w)een+ material. There are SPOILERS for the episode. Watch it people, it's amazing!

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prologue

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The sun was casting an odd triangle shape just below Josh's cheekbone, almost more white than gold, and it moved very little even after he shifted his position in the seat of the bay window. Maya studied the triangle for a moment while the boy composed himself. She had just dragged him by force to this little corner of the lodge, demanding he explain 'everything he knew' about her identity crisis and the triangle-that-wouldn't-die, and braced herself mentally because she could tell he knew a lot.

He took a deep breath, the corners of his lips turning upward than puckering slightly in pensive thought. "Are you sure you're ready to hear this?"

"Completely sure."

"Even if it's bad for me?"

"Tell me right now." It was a command, not a request, and he seemed willing to comply.

"I spend a lot of time observing people," he said, his stare suddenly becoming intense. "Know what I observed about you?"

She had no idea.

He didn't pause. "You are the best friend anyone could ever have. Maybe it's because of everything you've been through, but honestly you have the greatest capacity for love I have ever seen."

She blinked, probably about twenty times, not entirely sure she'd heard correctly. "Say that again?"

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"I realized, I was thinking of you, and I began to wonder how long you'd been on my mind. Then it occurred to me: since I met you, you've never left"

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six months earlier

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Josh woke up brooding and melancholy —and only felt worse by the time he arrived to class. True, a seven-thirty "Social Psychology of Emotion" class would sour anyone's mood, but that wasn't the source for Josh. Last night, yet another college girl had broken his heart. Ok, 'broken' was overly dramatic language; bruised was more accurate.

Always intelligent in speech, her dark eyes framed by tortoise-shell glasses and long dark braid tucked neatly to one side, she was gorgeous. She'd been the epitome of grace and elegance, or so he'd thought. It was more likely he'd just mistaken outer charm for inner beauty. It was a problem he had. In any case, when she canceled their path to study for a Math midterm, he had assumed she'd be home hitting the books, not on a date with their Calc professor.

He reached for his coffee, shrugging off the image finding himself the server for their dinner together. Apparently NYU professors could afford to dine in the upscale restaurant he had started working part-time in. You live, you learn.

The warm bitter taste of espresso woke him up a little, enough to catch the end of the lecture on 'the function of love.' (The universe loved to mess with him like that). And the class was moving on to discussion mode.

When asked to define love, the girl across from him raised her hand and said it was "a spark between two people. Chemistry you can't reign in. It's almost a sickness because you can't stop thinking about them and how much you want them."

Josh rolled his eyes.

Another girl, a freshman like him, said, "Love is about how I feel when I'm with someone. If he makes me feel special, like I'm the only girl in the world, to me, that's love."

Josh audibly scoffed at that comment, maybe a little too audibly since the students sitting nearby turned to look at him. The professor raised an eyebrow. "You have something to add, Josh? You seem to disagree."

He thought about keeping his opinion to himself, but his ornery temperament won out. "That's not love."

"Care to elaborate?"

He sighed. "Real love means you care more about the other person than you do yourself. You make choices based on what is good for them, even if those choices don't benefit you. Real love is more about giving than getting. Anything other than that is just desire, or even worse, narcissism masquerading as affection."

The professor smirked, looking pleased but didn't say so. "You seem pretty informed on the subject."

He ran a hand through his hair, feeling a little chagrined by his outburst. "Yeah, well, I have been surrounded by a lot of examples of real love. It's hard not to pick up on the patterns."

"Glad to hear it. Those are going to be useful to you for this classes major assignment." The teacher turned to the blackboard and listed the requirements for the project. "You're going to thoroughly analyze a component of love. And your data will come from the people around you, relationships that prove the claim you're making about love. If you don't have anyone in your life with a love worth studying, maybe you can ask Mr. Mathews if you can borrow some of his."

more to come? hopefully so.