A/N: I tried to make all of this as realistic possible. Let me know what you think!

"Why can you forgive me and not her?" Farkle asked, clearly puzzled for once in his life.

"Because at least you tried. It may have been only once, but it happened. After our fight at the ski lodge, Maya never came. She gave up."

"Do you really think—"

"I thought you were listening. You heard her in that video. She said that she gave up on us that very night. The very moment she showed up when Lucas and I were ending things."

"Sugar, you gotta remember: to her, you ended things over a boy."

Isadora came to her defense immediately. "But she wasn't ending things over a boy. She was bringing up a valid point to Lucas that had caused her a year or two of silent suffering.

Lucas looked right at Riley and frowned, but she waved him off. Pretty soon he'll tire of chasing her and he'll be free to pursue anyone he wanted, she thought. "Enough about me and Maya. There's no hope there. Can we just start the next two clips please?"

The little genius obliged, clicking open the next file on his desktop. It was him and Is sitting on the same couch. How bold, Riley thought, curious why Farkle decided to play this one next. "If it weren't obvious, my dear Isadora Smackle, I'm still in love with you."

"Of course it's been obvious. I would not have been accepted early into MIT and Harvard if I weren't able to observe, analyze, and make accurate deductions based on human behavior if I didn't already know."

"You got early admissions into both schools?" Zay exclaimed. "I'm mad proud of ya, Smackle."

Her best friend blushed and looked away humbly — a look that Riley almost didn't recognize.

"Congratulations, Isadora. There's no one more deserving than you."

Confidently, Is replied, "There's you."

"I did not receive admissions to MIT or Harvard. There can only be on super genius in Massachusetts it seems."

"I'm so—"

"Don't be. I was accepted into Columbia, Yale, CalTech, and Princeton. My parents are more than overjoyed." Farkle smiled brightly at her. "As am I."

"Is this our hierarchy then? Because I do sincerely believe that you have excellent achievements and skills that exceed beyond my own."

"We're just the top tier intellectuals at Abigail Adams now." Is took his hand and he took a visible gulp, saying, "I'm sorry for how I behaved. Towards you and Riley, in front of Jamie. I was hurt and I reacted poorly. My behavior was unacceptable."

She ignored him. "I was afraid. Deeply, deeply afraid. It was a difficult summer. Far more difficult than Aptus Endosystem's biomedical engineering internship program. But you were in Chicago, accomplishing amazing things with Boeing's aerospace department. I couldn't logically complain. It was everything both of us wanted to achieve. But we weren't together and it bothered me. I didn't know why. But now I know, I was afraid that I was letting our relationship eclipse both of what we wanted in our lifetimes and what that meant when it came to consider universities."

"'There's no room for feelings in science,'" he quoted, earning a smirk from her. "But I understand."

"I'm so sorry, Farkle. I never intended to hurt you."

"That's nothing compared to how much I wanted you to feel the same pain I did. That is unforgivable. And I understand if you can never forgive me."

"I already have, Farkle Minkus." Their hands gripped each other tighter. "Jamie, however, has not. He maybe more difficult to please."

"Are you guys back together?" Riley shrieked. "And you didn't tell me?"

"I knew you still had issues to process, not to mention Lucas, and I didn't know if you would approve of our renewed relationship."

"You're my best friend," Riley said, "Is, and if he makes you happy, I don't need to approve. But I'm grateful that you considered my happiness before yours in terms of telling me. This is good news! I always knew you two were forever. As much as it hurt me to admit it. But I love you and I love Farkle."

She released Isadora's arm and nudged her to scoot closer to Farkle — the longing between them was clear. Is smiled. "I love you too, Riley."

"But don't think we're not talking about this more one-on-one. I want to know every detail of everything. How you forgave him, how you realized he was still the one…." Riley inadvertently glanced at Lucas who was playing with his pencil.

"And us?" Farkle gestured between the two of them.

"Us too. We've got a lot of work to do when it comes to rebuilding our friendship."

Lucas and Zay, both in their practice uniforms, popped up on the screen, sitting at the Abigail Adams' baseball diamond bleachers. After a solid minute of dead air, with neither boy even trying to make eye contact, Lucas finally took a visible inhale, chest heaving, and asked, "Alright, how do we start this?"

Zay, biting the bullet, asked, "Why are things so awkward with us?"

"I—" The video turned to black.

"What the shit just happened?" Zay exclaimed. Farkle immediately pulled his laptop into his lap and started to run some kind of software on it.

"It's a corrupted video file."

"Damn." Zay looked over at Lucas and said, "Why don't we just summarize what we talked about?"

Riley demanded, "How do we know you're being honest?"

"Because y'all were honest in front of us. Trust me, Sugar."

"In summary, Zay and I decided to work on growing our friendship again. We talked a lot about why we found ourselves drifting, since the two of us didn't really have anything to argue about. And while he didn't admit to me that he felt like he was playing second fiddle to me, I also didn't bring up the Maya of it all."

"If we watched the whole video, something definitely would've felt lacking; as if we were holding back in the conversation the entire time. I guess, we talked about how both of us were interested in heading back to Texas for college and realized we might have to spend a few more years together."

"And that reminded us of our friendship in Texas and New York. We had some good times." Lucas reached out to him and Zay clasped his hand.

"It was a dope friendship, man."

"So that just leaves Riley and Maya's interview," Isadora stated matter-of-factly. "Where is it?"

Riley looked around for the blonde, avoiding eye contact with all of the rest of them, before grimacing. Teeth closed and lips stretched into a semblance of a smile, she confessed, "We didn't do one."

"Why not?" Zay got up and left the room, probably in search of his girlfriend.

"We were going to meet up after the rally, but there was a party and things got a little complicated." They eyed her expectantly. "We tried texting each other but we just never seemed to be at the same place."

"You guys haven't been in the same place since the ski lodge," Farkle pointed out.

"This is our grade," Lucas reminded her. "This is due in two days, on Monday."

"I know! I'm sorry!"

"You'll just have to do it now." It wasn't a suggestion out of his mouth, but a demand. But then Zay reappeared and sullenly revealed, "Either your house is a lot more complicated than I remembered, Fark, or Maya already left."

"Oh great. Thanks Riley."

"What?"

"If you just got the fuck over yourself and forgave her, we wouldn't be in this mess."

"And you're an ass, Lucas. How am I supposed to forgive you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You keep asking me for a second chance. And I desperately want to give you one—"

"Is that so? I clearly knew that from all the running you do—"

"—but how can I when you act like this?"

"Like you're any better!"

"At least I don't —"

"Guys! Shut up!" Zay shouted. "Look I care about both of you. But for fuck's sake. Lucas, you say stupid crap to her and Maya without owning up to anything you did. And when you try to take responsibility for your actions, you seek pity. That's why Farkle tried to fight you, man."

"And Riley," Farkle contributed, "I know I said you made everyone pick sides, and that was wrong. Because truthfully you kept running away. You actively dodged Zay's small offers of friendship, you ran from Lucas every single time he showed back up in your life, and you didn't have an interview with Maya even when it was for school."

They were all standing, staring each other down, but it was really Is, Zay, and Farkle against her and Lucas. Not against, for. A renewed friendship.

"I—"

"Me first," she insisted. "You kept wanting to back to where we were, Lucas. Back to a relationship, back to us. There wasn't room for forgiveness or processing or friendship with you. It was always let's get back together and let's start over. But I wanted to move on and forward because of everything."

"Too fast?" he asked.

She lifted her hand and pretended to pinch the air. "A little bit."

"I'm sorry, Riles," his voice was soft and quiet, "I guess I want everything to be instantly back where it was. I saw how you and Zay fell back into old rhythms and I wanted it to look like Farkle and Smackle."

"But that was a lot of processing from both of them to move forward, not back."

"I get that. I just never stopped loving you and prayed that you didn't stop either."

"I'm not in love with you anymore, Lucas, because whoever you are right now might not be the same guy that you were. We don't know who we grew into, who we became, and it terrifies that if we just went back to the beginning…. You wouldn't love who I am today and just keep looking for who I was."

"Yeah, no, that's ex-exactly right. I guess should've been more willing to-to-to…."

"To talk?" Riley offered to him, smiling.

"Exactly." He smiled back. "There's a lot to talk about, isn't there?"

Her heart still fluttered at his words and at the anticipation of what could happen — of what would happen. "So much, Lucas. But also a lot of pain and damage to work on. To forgive."

He knew. "That kiss didn't mean anything, Riley. Missy caught me at a weak, weak point. And I regretted it every night before you told me that you knew."

"It's okay, but I didn't mean that," she said, and it was true. "It's been a long time and I've been foolishly holding on to you and Maya having feelings for each other even if it meant hurting me. You can't control what you feel, only how you act on them. I sucked it up but that just meant a brewing resentment and I'm sorry for that. I should've been honest and open with how I felt. I shouldn't have pushed—"

He was standing in front of her now and she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into a hug. Against his chest, she whispered, "You should've gotten to choose on your own and I should've said everything I felt."

And then Lucas said what she knew he was going to say: "Tell Maya. Talk to Maya. You and me? We can talk after. Even if it means that we don't go to Homecoming together. Because you need to talk to her."

"But is that so healthy? That I constantly put Maya and me before my individual happiness? Should I really be placing all of my happiness on her? On our friendship?" These were the words that had been weighing down her heart for so long and now? She still didn't if she believed them.

"You'll figure it out. And we will too. Friendship first."