Summary: When it's 5:30 and the light changes, Riley Matthews turns golden. But through the lens of her camera, Lucas Friar is always golden. ~2400 words.
Disclaimer: I don't have any association with the Girl Meets World cast, crew, writers, etc. I'm just a hopeless fangirl with a lot of feelings who's more attached to these characters than I should be. This fanfic was started right after I watched Girl Meets Creativity, but I'd say it can be canon maybe through-ish Girl Meets Texas Part 1? I'd imagine that Riley still lied and told Lucas she saw him as a brother, but that she didn't do it because of Maya, just because of fear of losing his friendship.
At the beginning of seventh grade, Riley Matthews was ready to take on the world. She had Maya, she had the subway, and she had the memory of Lucas Friar's lap to keep her smiling throughout her first day.
By the end of the year, she'd gotten her first (and if she let Maya count, also second) kiss, her family had started to accept that her friends were just as much of a part of her world as they were, and she'd learned to accept that who she was was more than enough to be happy.
At the beginning of eighth grade, Riley Matthews felt like she knew everything there was to know. Well, almost everything. She didn't know what she was supposed to do about the fact that she'd kissed Lucas Friar, but that was okay. She'd figure it out.
By the end of the year, Riley Matthews had gone to college (for a night), she'd taken her first ever trip to Texas, and she'd learned that being herself meant getting humiliated because your classmates think your best friend and your unofficial boyfriend would be a better couple.
Oh yeah...and she'd let Lucas Friar go.
Friendship was the most important thing to Riley Matthews, and she was definitely going to need it now more than ever. It was the beginning of ninth grade - or, as her dad jokingly called it, "Riley and Maya: The High School Years" - and Riley just felt so behind.
Farkle had debate team, and chess club, and he'd even managed to get a role in the eighth grade spring musical last year. He had his relationship with Smackle, too, which was weird, but cute in its own Farkle-y way.
Maya had her art, and she had her mom's budding relationship with Shawn, and thanks to Harper Burgess, she'd even started reading comic books over the summer, with the help of a few recommendations from Lucas.
As for Lucas, he had baseball, and his family had found him a place a little ways out of the city where he could horseback ride - which Maya mocked him for relentlessly - and he seemed happier than ever in New York with Zay around.
(He didn't have Riley's heart anymore, and she tries not to cry when she thinks that maybe he doesn't really miss having that so much).
And Zay? Zay's got ballet, and a seemingly never-ending running commentary on their lives that makes him an ideal candidate for the morning news, and he's managed to make himself a permanent fixture at Riley, Maya, Lucas, and Farkle's lunch table.
And what does Riley have? She has her friends, who she helps whenever she can. She has her dad, who somehow managed to become their teacher again. She helps out at Topanga's in the afternoons, and she chats with Maya in the bay window until her best friend has to disappear to go home every night.
But she's still not good at anything. Everyone else has their talent, but not Riley. She's just the same old smiley, sunshiney Riley - people laugh at her enthusiasm and applaud her for how hard she tries, but she never gets any credit for her talent.
But hey, what does that matter as long as she's got her friends?
(When it's dark, and Riley stares at the stars on her ceiling because she can't fall asleep, it matters a lot, but the rest of the time she acts like it doesn't bug her. No one asks if she's okay with the fact that she hasn't found her niche yet. She hopes that doesn't mean no one cares.)
Riley marches into school every day, and when her friends talk about clubs and teams and all the things they're excited for, she just smiles until her cheeks hurt and prays someday she'll find her thing, too.
Her friends start to notice Riley getting quiet when they talk about their extracurriculars, and they start asking her to join things. But Riley doesn't want to get the reputation as purple paint girl again if she follows Maya to art club, and her interpretive dancing doesn't really have the finesse needed to be a ballerina. And her playing baseball... wouldn't that be a laugh.
Farkle's the one that convinces her to join yearbook club with him again. Riley didn't really want to after how traumatizing last year's was, but she's high school Riley now, and she has to put that behind her. Besides, it's not like a measly ninth grader would be co-editor, so if someone votes Lucas and Maya best couple this year, at least she won't feel so stupid for it slipping past her.
She tags along with Farkle to the first meeting, thinking she'll start with layout or something. But instead, they ask if anyone has a camera, and when Riley remembers the one Uncle Shawn gave her for Christmas in 7th grade, she raises her hand and suddenly she's Riley the photographer.
Uncle Shawn told her that since Maya was good at drawing pictures, maybe Riley would be good at taking them. At first she thinks he's crazy, because she's clumsy and she doesn't know when to use the flash or not, and she can't capture things in motion, and she doesn't count down right when she needs posing people to smile.
But then slowly, surely... Riley gets better. Suddenly she's not just taking pictures when she's got something the yearbook assigns her to go capture, she's taking them wherever she goes. She gets candids of her friends and family, and random strangers on the street, and the squirrels and dogs in Central Park, and the sunset, and everything that crosses her path.
Riley Matthews isn't just the nice girl who picks up her friends when they're in pieces anymore.
Riley Matthews is good at something.
When Shawn comes for Christmas, Riley sits with him for hours, showing off her photos and getting tips from him on how to get even better. She thinks Maya might feel bad that Shawn's paying more attention to Riley than he is to her, but since Shawn started dating her mom, Maya sees him a lot more... and since Josh moved to New York, she sees him a lot more, too. When Riley hears her dad complaining instead, her head snaps to see Maya and Josh talking by the tree, and she grins at the sight of them.
Her stomach twists a little bit, though, because she can see the way Maya's face lights up around him still. Riley's face used to do that around Lucas Friar without fail, but since she told him last year that she thought they should just stay friends, now she just has to give him her normal smile instead.
Riley shakes that thought off and goes back to flipping through her photos with Shawn instead.
Riley has piles and piles of pictures of her and her friends, as well as other people around school, and she and Farkle are sitting in the yearbook room in March, going through them to finalize which ones would be good for the candid pages of the yearbook.
"Riley, these are incredible," Farkle tells her, because it's the first time she's really let him look through them at length. Sure, some go up on Facebook and Instagram, and she lets them see sometimes when she's really obvious about the fact that she's taking pictures... but the candids have been kept near and dear to her heart. They're like personal memories of her friends, almost like a photo diary.
There's also a part of her that remembers what it was like to be goofy, talentless Riley, and she doesn't want to feel like that again if her friends don't like her work. She should have known she could count on Farkle, though.
They've gone through the pictures of strangers, and now they're on the stacks of her friends. Farkle makes faces at the ones of himself, laughs at some of the silly positions she's caught Zay in, and even though he's a taken man now, he still nods appreciatively at how beautiful Maya looks in her photos, especially the ones taken of her creating art of her own.
It's the pile of Lucas he gives pause on, though, and Riley doesn't understand why. She comes up behind him, peering over his shoulder and looking at the shots. He flips through them slowly, eyeing pictures of Lucas at the height of his laughing, right when the sun is causing his smile to glow, Lucas deep in thought, his face lighting up talking about something back home...
Farkle flips through the whole range of emotions Riley has captured, and she has to pull away to swallow the lump in her throat without Farkle noticing.
He's finally through the stack, though, and he turns to look at Riley. His gaze is piercing, and he's silent for so long that Riley finally demands, "What?"
"Riley, I had no idea," he apologizes, and Riley feels herself go cold. She takes a deep breath, trying to play off his statement even though she feels vulnerable and exposed.
"No idea what?" she asks innocently, her voice too sickly sweet to be believable. It doesn't matter, though. He's Farkle, and he knows anyway. He always knows.
"No idea that you were still in love with Lucas."
Riley scoops up her photos, not ready to have this conversation yet. She turns to Farkle with a strained smile, and begs, "Please don't tell anyone," as she disappears out of the photo lab.
Now that Farkle knows, she can't keep it from Maya forever. Especially not when Maya waltzes in through the bay window without Riley even noticing because she's so caught up in trying to pick out the safest pictures possible for a ninth grade scrapbook she's making to commemorate how okay this year was.
Because that's all Riley can call it. Okay. She found her passion, she loves her friends, but she thought she'd feel different somehow. She glances at a picture of her parents on her nightstand, then looks back down at the pictures of Lucas in front of her and sighs right as Maya lays a hand on her shoulder.
"Whatcha looking at?" Her friend asks, picking up the pictures as Riley visibly cringes.
Maya knows art. Maya knows lighting and emotions and angles and all of the things that Riley's been trying to get better at in her photography, because she uses them in her paintings. She flips through a few pictures, but she doesn't look at Riley with sympathy the way Farkle did.
"You know how I told you once that at five thirty, you turn golden?" Maya asked her, setting the pictures back down and grabbing Riley's hand to tug her up out of her chair.
"Yes?" Riley asks, remembering the memory with a smile. Maya was so passionate about her art that day; she'd learned to care about something enough to fight for it, even without Riley's help. She doesn't know what her best friend is trying to get at, but she still feels her chest swell with pride thinking about how they saved the arts that day.
They crawl through the window together as Maya says, "Through the lens of your camera, Lucas always looks golden."
They reach Topanga's. Maya let Riley be quiet most of the way there, and Riley's sure it's because her best friend has figured out her secret now, too. That she pushed Lucas away so she could keep him, as backwards as that logic is. Her fears and her insecurities that they'd try to date, and he'd like someone else more, or that they'd fight and not be able to stay friends afterwards, had made her lie about her feelings for all this time.
Sure enough, there's a seat next to Lucas, and a seat between Farkle and Zay. Maya slides into the latter, nodding encouragingly at the spot next to Lucas. She feels Farkle's eyes on her, too, and he smiles softly at her.
She's tried so hard to be friends, to treat him like a brother, even, so that all of this can stay the same.
"Hey," Lucas says, and for a second, Riley considers the familiar greetings they've adopted since she let him go. The playful shove, the joking 'howdy' that sounds too much like Maya's, the jumping straight into conversation without any kind of pause.
She thinks about what Maya said as they crossed through the window. About how through the lens of her camera, Lucas is always golden.
But Riley doesn't think it's her camera that makes him look that way. She thinks it's her eyes, or maybe even her heart. She's more painfully aware of her feelings than she has been in a long time; she should have known she couldn't push them away forever. They all know her too well for that, and her cheeks tint pink as she smiles shyly at him.
"Hi," she says slowly, ducking her eyes down to look at her lap. She finally looks back up in time to see a huge, hopeful smile on Lucas's face at the old greeting - the one from when they were an "unofficial thing".
Riley wishes she had a picture of that.
She shouldn't overanalyze it, but she does. She thinks about that smile, over and over, and maybe she doesn't need a picture after all. It's perfectly imprinted in her head. All Riley has to do is close her eyes and see it.
"Do you guys think Lucas still likes me?" she asks one day when it's just her, Farkle, and Maya in the bay window. She wonders why her dad never cares about Farkle being there with him the way he cares about the other boys, but that's another thought for another day.
"Only Lucas can tell you that," Farkle says, diplomatically. Riley knows it's not fair to ask them, because even if they did know, it would be betraying Lucas to tell her, but it's so much easier than going straight to the source. She's the one who called things off; does she have any right to expect to still have his heart, after nearly a year.
"Huckleberry hasn't looked at another girl all year, Riles. May as well take your shot," Maya encourages, and Riley smiles sheepishly when she thinks that her best friend probably isn't looking forward to talking about Lucas Friar with her again 24/7, but Maya will do it anyway because she loves her.
And also because of ring power.
"I'm going to do it," Riley agrees, resigned to the idea. Every night this week she's gone to bed with that smile in her mind as she falls asleep, and it seems to pop right back into her mind first thing when she wakes up.
"Aw, man, now I don't get to say Cheese Souffle every time Charlie's around anymore, do I?" Maya pretend whines, but Farkle high fives her and says "That's our girl!"
Riley's so grateful to have friends like these. With them, she feels like she can do anything.
Including admitting that she made a huge mistake by setting Lucas Friar free.
Riley hasn't felt this nervous around Lucas since the beginning of eighth grade, but maybe it's worth it...just like it was for her parents. She replays old moments between them in her head, and then, she writes him a note asking him to meet her in the spot where she usually does her weekly Riley awards during lunch.
Hopefully her dad will write her a sick note if it doesn't go well...
As she waits, she doesn't imagine herself in the empty hallway of a high school. She imagines herself in a living room in Texas, breaking her own heart as she lies through her teeth.
"Hi," Lucas says, and Riley gets all nervous again the second he's in sight.
"Hey," she replies softly, then gathers her courage.
"I have something I want to say to you, Lucas." She remembers this moment in reverse; Lucas telling her that if it wasn't for her, he never would have ridden Tombstone the bull. If it wasn't for her, he never would have survived in New York. Telling her that she was really important to him.
Sometimes she still wonders what he would have said if she hadn't interrupted him with what she'd said yes.
"You can say anything to me, Riley."
Lucas seems to be hanging onto her every word, and she wrings her hands together as she starts really speaking.
"You are really important to me, Lucas. You always have been. We have always been very good at talking to each other. But before... before we were never good at holding hands, or being a couple. And I still want to know you're always there to talk to, but..."
Last time, she'd told him she loved him like a brother. Lucas is watching her expectantly... hopefully again, and she feels her heart hammering against her chest as his small smile keeps her from chickening out.
"In Texas I told you you were like a brother to me, but I lied. I lied because I was scared that we'd fight, and we'd break up, and then you wouldn't be in my life forever. But when I said that, you told me you thought that we would be in each other's lives forever anyway, without needing to act like brother and sister. And..."
Riley stumbled over her words. In her head, it had all been mapped out so perfectly, but now that she was here in person, she didn't know how to say the scariest thing she'd ever had to say before.
It wasn't just some silly middle school crush. He was so, so much more than that to her. And she hoped that maybe, after all this time, she was still so much more than that to him, too.
"I've never loved you like a brother, Lucas, but... but I do love you. And I just wanted to let you know how," she told him. Lucas took a step closer to her, and Riley met him on the middle, pushing her weight onto her tiptoes as she met his eyes.
The distance is gone as her lips brush against his, scared at first that he'll reject her, and then more firmly when he kisses back. His hands are tangled in her hair, and she forgets where she is; Riley forgets how to breathe. It's like a year of bottled up feelings are finally being let out, and she doesn't want it to end.
A throat clears behind them, and Riley and Lucas jump apart, both their eyes wide with panic when they realize it's her dad.
"Detention, both of you. Separately," Cory tells them, shaking his finger at Lucas to try and scare him away from his daughter. Instead, though, he slips his hand into Riley's, squeezing it and not letting go, even once her dad adds, "You have a lot of explaining to do at home!" before walking away.
But Riley swears he doesn't sound that mad, and she wonders if her dad saw right through her as soon as she started taking pictures of her friends with her camera, too.
Hand still in Lucas's, they head towards lunch, with only shy smiles towards each other in the aftermath of how totally embarrassing that was. Lucas pauses before he opens the cafeteria door for her, though, sneaking in a much more chaste kiss this time that won't land them an extra day of detention if anyone catches them.
His free hand on the door, he grins at Riley, with a smile that looks like he's on top of the world. If Riley had her camera, she was sure that this shot would make him look more golden than ever, because it's the happiest she's ever seen him.
"I love you, too, Riley," Lucas tells her, adding, "I'm so glad you changed your mind."
Riley mentally takes it back as they cross the threshold into the cafeteria hand in hand, with Zay wolf-whistling at them and Maya winking at her best friend. After all... who needs a camera when this is one of those moments Riley knows she's going to remember forever?