A/N: Here's chapter four. I'm sorry it took so long. I've been working the longest days which make for the longest weeks and the longest months. I finally found some time to get some typing in. Also, as soon as this story is complete I have a few more multi-chaps on their way that are in various stages of completion. So, hopefully I can get some stuff out to make up for the extended absences. Anyway, enjoy! Please leave me a review to let me know what you think about this next chapter! Thanks! ~Mac

Disclaimer: I don't own GMW.

Four

"Do you think we could go somewhere else?" Lucas asks, after their coffees have been drained to the last dribbling sips at the bottoms of their cups and they've spent at least a good ten minutes with only the sounds of the coffee shop employees and other guests between them.

"Yes," Maya agrees, already starting to stand. "Please."

They dump their trash on the way out of the coffee shop and then she is following Lucas out into the day. She doesn't know where he's leading her (or where any of this is going. Honestly, she hadn't thought much farther than about halfway through the unexpected coffee date, which was probably why the second half had wallowed in the silence between them. But, she trusts Lucas. She might have started this, but she's just as happy to follow his lead for a little while). After a few minutes of keeping pace beside Lucas on the sidewalk, his hand sort of drifts across the short distance between them and catches hers. Any uncertainty that might have been brewing within her is snuffed out by his fingers lacing between hers. It's so casual, such a natural, fluid, single motion, and just like that they're holding hands and walking down a New York City street. It grounds her and they could be going anywhere, but she knows she'll be okay so long as his hand stays in hers. (Part of her wants to tease him over how "smooth" a move that was, but that part of her belongs a little too much to the Maya that knows all of Lucas's greatest and worst qualities from long earned experience, so she quiets that part of herself until it's a nearly inaudible whisper. The Maya that is just learning this Lucas doesn't want to disturb or otherwise ruin this moment because she wants to memorize the feel of his hand in hers, the delicate weight of it, the comforting warmth, the gentle caress of his fingertips. She commits it to memory and stores it for safekeeping in the deepest, untouchable parts of her mind). After a while, it's clear that Lucas doesn't really have a destination in mind. He has them wandering a little aimlessly and Maya doesn't mind at all. In fact, she kind of likes this. They've never had this before (for all the years they've known each other, everything they've done has had an underlying purpose motivating them. Some lesson to be learned. Some challenge to be completed. Someone else's hand has always been guiding their every move. There hasn't been a step that they've taken that was only theirs. Maya realizes this now, and wonders how she had never seen it before. How had she missed that?). She doesn't want this to end, so she keeps putting one foot in front of the other, and Lucas does the same.

"So," Lucas breaks the silence after they've practically circled a block. "I talked to Farkle—"

"Oh, I know," Maya says.

Lucas grimaces. "Riley?"

"Yep," Maya pops the word out. Even in her still lingering frustration at her best friend, those three letters seem to still hold affection for the well-intentioned goofball.

"I'm sorry," Lucas says. "I just needed a little perspective."

Maya shrugs. They turn a corner and walk a little farther before she speaks a response (she hopes the hesitation comes off as mulling over and not as apprehension over the potential answer to the question she poses). "And did Farkle provide you with the necessary perspective?"

"No," Lucas answers simply. "Did Riley?"

"Not in the slightest," Maya laughs. "But, I think I found it anyway."

Maya only catches Lucas's smile because she's studying him closely as she waits for his response.

"Me too."

"And?" Maya prompts.

"We're here," Lucas says.

Maybe that answer shouldn't be enough but, somehow, it's exactly what Maya needs to hear (because, isn't that the whole point of this? If they hadn't pretended at that party, all of this would be about the past. And their past as defined by Riley, Farkle and the others had been all about the future. It's only now, under these circumstances, bizarre as they are, that they're actually able to focus only on the present. It's scary, maybe, because it's new and unknown, unexpected, unplanned and thus undefined, but that's what is so exhilarating about it too). Maya is here in this moment with Lucas and that's all the perspective she needs to move forward one step at a time.

For maybe the first time in her life (at least the life that began the first time she crawled into the Bay Window), Maya doesn't have Riley's voice in her head (or even Kendall's for that matter, which has unfortunately also become a staple in the past month). No, in this moment, the only voice in Maya's head is her own. Maybe it has its reservations, but the best part is that little voice of hers (that sometimes gets drowned out by, the other more persistent conflicting voices, gets stamped down by the Riley toned conscience, or gets worn out by the constant barrage of Kendall's animated narration) gets the only, and final, say this time. It's her own voice that she lets guide her. She honestly can't remember the last time she did that.

Eventually, their walk draws to a close. Lucas stops making random turns and leads them back to the coffee shop they had met at. They linger outside the entrance. It's time to part ways, but finding the appropriate send off seems to be troubling both of them. Lucas is just watching her (and once again Maya is possessed by the desire to read his mind, because she wants to know what he sees when he looks at her like that, but she doesn't yet have the courage to just ask him straight out). He reaches up to brush some of her hair away from her face, and his fingers linger, trailing down her cheek. (Part of her thinks that if it were some other guy, at this point, she would just kiss him, if only to end the suspense, but its not some random guy. It's Lucas. With or without their history, this can't be it. It's not the moment. And honestly, she never would have let a random guy touch her like this, so…special circumstances). The sun shifts between clouds and a glare of it flickers off a window out of the corner of Maya's eye; it reminds her of the flicker of firelight and she realizes they could stand just like this forever if she doesn't do something. So, she does the first thing that comes to mind and goes with it.

Maya tips herself onto her toes and wraps her arms around Lucas in a tight hug. His arms wrap around her middle and lift her into it. It giver her just enough leverage to tuck her face into the crook of his neck. She settles into the embrace with a sigh.

"It was good to see you, Lucas," Maya keeps her voice low, speaking only to him, just near his ear (not that there's anyone close enough to overhear anyway, but this feels important). "Even if it wasn't on purpose."

"Yeah," Lucas breathes. His hands will not still on her back, and each, possibly unintentional stroke threatens to send shivers down her spine. It's unfair that a hug (just a hug, darn it) is enough to garner this reaction from her (she intends to ignore the melty feeling in her knees or the out of rhythm hitch of her heart, because she's trying to not draw too many conclusions this early out of the gate). "We should do this again sometime. On purpose."

Maya backs up just enough to look up into his eyes. "Definitely. And without Kendall."

"No Kendall," Lucas agrees. "Just us."

"You've got yourself a d—" Maya stammers and regroups. "D-deal."

Lucas smiles that smile that is more like a smirk (and Maya just knows that he knows that that wasn't the d-word that was originally going to leave her mouth. The thing is, it occurred to her, as soon as that d-word arrived at her lips, that she didn't know how serious it was meant to be. Did she mean for it to be taken as it is, or as a joke? Could there ever be any humor in it? Did she want humor in it? With so many of her own conflicting thoughts, it's easier for her to just choose a less loaded word. Only, the stuttering mess she makes of it is so obvious that, impossibly, Lucas just knows. And that somehow doesn't manage to make things awkward even though it should. So, she can count that as a success, right?).

"You know where to find me," Maya says.

Lucas nods. "I do."

"Okay," Maya smiles and takes a few steps away. "I'll see you, Lucas."

"See you, Maya."

The walk back to her dorm alone is a thousand times easier than the weighed down trudge that was the trip to the coffee shop. Maya has been able to shed the lingering frustration with Riley's attempted interference, mostly because it has slipped from her mind almost entirely. Maya is just content (in fact, so content that her unfailing smile may have startled a few strangers she passed on her way to her dorm. So content that she doesn't care if those people think she's crazy. She can't remember the last time she felt this good, at least not without all of her friends around her when she walks into her dorm and finds Kendall exactly where she thought she'd find her roommate. Maya doesn't greet Kendall; she just rolls herself onto her bed, turning her still present smile toward the ceiling. Every breath feels like a pleased sigh and she really wants to extend this moment as long as she can.

Kendall isn't to be ignored though (she's like Riley like that). Maya is replaying her time with Lucas, and only about halfway through, when Kendall bounces onto her bed beside her. It takes some shoving and wiggling but Maya finally rolls her eyes and concedes to the presence. Maya shifts to make room for the intruder on the too small bed. This feels familiar. This time last year, this would have been Maya and Riley snuggling, ready to gossip about whatever drama worthy thing had happened in their lives (Maya almost wishes she could have this moment with Riley now, but she also knows that she probably never could have had this with Riley, not about Lucas).

"So…" Kendall draws out the word, so many o's tacked on the end that they spin around Maya's head. "How was coffee with Lucas?"

"How was your thing?" Maya counters.

Kendall chuckles and rolls her eyes. "Your attempts at deflection will be in vain."

"Deflection? Me?" Maya says. "Ha."

Kendall's fingers reach in to tickle Maya's sides and Maya squirms away but finds she has nowhere to go. "Come on, Maya. I want details. Don't be stingy."

"There's nothing to say, Kendall," Maya says. "It was coffee and a walk. That's all."

"So, you went on a 'walk,' huh?" Kendall replies.

"Why does it sound like you're putting walk in air quotes? We went on an actual walk. You know, one foot in front of the other? Gets you from one place to another, sometimes in the company of another person?" Maya says. "No air quotes necessary."

"Uh-huh," Kendall says. "Sure. After the night you two had, y'all just went on an entirely innocent walk. I believe you. One hundred and ten percent. Obviously."

"First of all, you don't know what kind of night we had together. You assumed," Maya points out (even though she knows she's just as guilty of letting Kendall assume exactly what she assumed, because she had no other way to explain what actually did happen. It's probably a mistake to call Kendall out on it now, because this will only open her up for Kendall to ask what actually happened then. It would be easier to let Kendall believe she knew what she was talking about, but Maya doesn't want everything Kendall believes about Lucas and her to be a lie. It gets complicated when she wonders why. As if it isn't already complicated enough).

"Oh, I think I do," Kendall pokes Maya this time.

Somehow the tone is enough to bring Maya to laugh. "Oh, you do, huh?"

"Yes, in fact, I know I do," Kendall says. "And I'll tell you why. Even though you've kept your lips zipped—which really is no way to treat your roomie, especially when I tell you all the sordid details of my affairs—and shush," Kendall puts a finger to Maya's when they open to speak up. "—I don't care if you don't want to know, I tell you anyway, because that's what I do, I overshare, and who else am going to gab to but you, Miss Hart? So, at the very least you should give me something to go on, but if you won't then I'll fill in the blanks and you can't do anything about that—so, despite your silence, as unending as it is, there are conclusions I can draw. And I've concluded that you must have had a good night because if you hadn't a, he wouldn't have been trying to sneak out of here the next morning, b, you would have shut me down when I basically announced that I was going to set you two up again, c, you would have walked out when you saw him in the coffee shop, you wouldn't have stuck around for a walk, air quotes or no air quotes, and d through z, the look on your face when you walked in just now, that alone, that friggin' seals it, huh, because that was the very, and I mean, very first time you've looked that happy since I met you and that, doll, is because of Lucas. Believe me, Maya, I—"

"—know these things," Maya finishes for her. "I know."

"Then why do you have to question me, girlie?" Kendall huffs, but this time Maya is able to dodge her poking finger.

"I like listening to you ramble," Maya says. "There's always something good somewhere in the middle."

"I see how it is," Kendall rolls away and then hops off Maya's bed to return to her own. "Eventually, I'm gonna work my magic on you and you'll be unable to resist telling me everything."

Maya laughs and props herself up so she can watch Kendall curl up across the room. "That so?"

Kendall shrugs a shoulder and then smirks over at Maya. "Or I'll just ask Lucas next time we're in class together."

"You do that," Maya says and rolls onto her back again to star up at the ceiling. "Chances are he'll be more tight lipped about it than I am."

"Can't blame a girl for trying."

"And trying, and trying, and trying…"

Kendall mock gasps. "It's like you see into my soul, Maya Hart."

"No wonder I've just gotten this urge to cover my eyes," Maya says and both girls fill the small room with their laughter.

Maya seems to be finding so many of the things she had been missing (some she hadn't even been aware that she was missing). Maybe she should feel guilty that she's retrieving these things without so many of the things that had defined her before, but she just can't seem to make herself feel anything but good (maybe that will make her feel even guiltier in the long run, but she will deal with that later).

After that, it's all about finding a rhythm. Maya and Lucas have to find the right balance (between who they were before and who they are now, or who they're going to be; between what they already know about each other and what they are only now learning about each other; between what everyone else knows and what they've chosen to keep to themselves). It's their time to see how they fit into each other's' lives, how they fill in new spaces for each other (spaces that weren't there before or at least not ones they fit into for each other before). It probably should have been harder, but the two of them adapt to each other with unexpected ease. Soon enough they've taken up so much of each other's lives that it seems like it would be impossible to untangle the two. A return to a time when they lived separately is both out of the question and undesirable.

It starts out as simple things: meeting up between classes, grabbing coffee now and again, lunch a few times (sometimes a quick bite before one of them has to be somewhere else, sometimes longer affairs when they have no other commitments), and a lot of the time studying together (often in the library or whatever coffee shop they're enjoying that day, they avoid anywhere their high school selves frequented and anywhere Kendall might be present, which rules out Maya's dorm). They steer clear of any location or activity that might be misconstrued as anything more than what it is, which is two people discovering each other (even if, for them, it's re-discovering and they're the only two that know that).

The best part is that it boils down to mostly talking. It's a wonder that they've never gotten around to this before, but the talking, the sharing of themselves, is the one thing they've never had before (yes, Maya does realize that the reason they haven't done the talking thing before was because talking was Lucas and Riley's thing. Maya hadn't been allowed to encroach upon that. It was always easier for her to stay in the lines that were drawn for her. Now that those lines have been erased and she's free to roam the full landscape of a connection with Lucas, she feels comfortable with talking over tangling, although she doesn't mind the occasional tangle, for old times' sake). Sometimes they talk about the past, or their friends, but with their new dynamic those times are oddly uncomplicated. They can mention Zay, or Farkle, or even Riley in passing without them being loaded subjects (something tells Maya that eventually there will come a time when they'll have to have a loaded conversation about these things and people they've long shared, but not yet). Mostly though they talk about each other, themselves, and the wonderful now they're living.

Having Lucas around again makes bearing the missing people in her life easier (there was a time right after the arrival of the Berkeley letter when Maya thought some terrible thoughts about what it was going to be like to be without her important people. She thought she had accepted it, like a perpetually single woman begrudgingly accepting that she's going to be the spinster cat lady, after all, but she realized she had not accepted it at all when she arrived at NYU. She was experiencing all these changes and supposedly great experiences, but all of her focus was on this just under the surface low key resentment that all of her usual lifelines weren't there to share them with her. She's over that now, thankfully, because she's got Lucas to hang onto now. He's no replacement for the others, but she's not floundering anymore. She can subsist on Skype calls, phone conversations, and texts from everyone else, so long as Lucas is there otherwise). But it also makes fitting one of those people back in, maybe, just a little bit harder too. It makes things with Riley a little complicated and Maya is actively trying to avoid figuring out why (see, when Maya and Riley shared the City, took it on arm in arm, they shared everything. When Riley needed a push, Maya gave it. When Maya needed to be dragged back, Riley needed her in. They had a give and take. It was cherished. They both relied upon it). While it is probably good for both of them to lose some of that co-dependency that Maya was unable to recognize in her best friend's absence, they've struggled to find a dynamic in her best friend's absence, they've struggled to find a dynamic to substitute for it—especially since this whole Lucas dilemma came up. Because, as it stands, Riley still disapproves and any mention of Lucas is an opportunity for Riley to remind Maya of that (it's like eating a doughnut in front of someone on a diet. She's not on a diet, she enjoys a healthy helping of sugar coated deliciousness when she pleases, and she certainly doesn't want to be told about the absurd number of calories she's currently consuming, but that person is definitely going to tell her anyway. It's like Lucas is that doughnut, and any time she eats him in front of Riley, she runs the risk of being told how bad he is for her when she would rather just savor his taste. And, that metaphor took an unexpected turn). Maya can't talk to Riley about Lucas and he's grown to take up so much of her life currently that it leaves her with little to talk to Riley about, which makes her feel bad (but not bad enough to do anything about it…yet). At the moment, Maya is only concerned with seeing where all this takes her, until then she knows Riley can get all her news through Farkle and whatever he gets from Lucas. There are other things Maya has to get settled on before she can deal with anything on the Riley front, and those things are between Maya and Lucas alone (no matter who might come prying).

"So, you and Lucas have been spending a lot of time together the past few weeks," Kendall says. She's laid out on her stomach on her bed, feet kicked up and swinging in the air, as she works on an essay. Her eyes never leave the laptop screen propped in front of her, but she's arrested progress on her assignment to pester Maya instead.

Maya had been hoping for anything to distract her from the chapter reading from the heavy textbook nestled in her lap, but this is not what she had in mind. She sighs and closes her textbook. But it's better than nothing.

"Yeah," Maya says. "Isn't that what you wanted? You were looking for someone to get me out of your hair, weren't you?"

"Okay, okay," Kendall pushes the laptop out of the way and rolls over to face Maya's bed. "I'll admit, when we first met, I could, like, smell the lonely on you. It was vaguely depressing—which was really depressing because the rest of you was so exciting and I knew we could be the, like, kick ass roomies we are now if you could just shake off whatever gloom had fallen over you. So, yeah, I hoped Lucas could get you out of your lonely funk. I thought, win, win. Best case scenario, he sticks around for keeps. And, you know, alternatively, not ideal but acceptable, at the absolute very least, he could be a pick me up hookup."

"Lucas isn't that type," Maya says (It doesn't matter if she's known him years or weeks, that's something she knows about Lucas).

"I had a feeling he wouldn't be," Kendall agrees. "He definitely seems like a best-case scenario kind of guy. And, I mean, you're out with him all the time, so I figure," she shrugs, even as a smirk flashes across her lips. Maya doesn't expect the blush that accompanies the flood of thoughts about her recent encounters with Lucas, but the reaction is enough to spur Kendall on. "So, you two are dating, then."

"No," Maya shakes her head. She grapples with an appropriate word for what she and Lucas have been doing (they haven't done anything much more than that hug outside the coffeeshop, but on a scale of one to ten their intimacy has hovered at about an eight. But the more that needle tilts toward ten, the farther off the charts their levels of unresolved tension skyrockets. They are beyond platonic, but they haven't quite landed anywhere else. They're in limbo). "We're exploring."

"Ooh, that sounds interesting," Kendall waggles her eyebrows.

Maya throws her pillow at Kendall, nailing her in the face just hard enough that she tips back to fall flat on her back. Maya rolls her eyes as they both laugh. "Not like that, Gutter Ball. We're getting to know each other."

"But it's going somewhere?" Kendall picks Maya's pillow up off her head to look over at Maya when she asks the question.

"I think so. Maybe," Maya says.

A phone chime interrupts them as Maya gets a text. 'My class got cancelled. You free for a little adventure? -L' She smiles at Lucas's invitation and quickly sends him a response.

Kendall clocks the instantaneous grin and looks smug as she says, "That looks more like a yes to me."

"Yes, then," Maya replies, already on her feet to get ready, her smiled unfading. "It's going somewhere. I just don't know where yet."