Requested on tumblr: The core 6 plays secret valentine and Maya gets Lucas

—-

"Secret Valentine!" Riley exclaimed. She was carrying a pink box covered in red hearts. There wasn't any doubt that she made it herself.

"No!" The entire group replied.

"But love! And friendship." Riley argued.

"Don't we suffer enough during secret santa?" Maya whined.

"Hey YOU all loved your gifts. It was a good day."

The group mumbled but Riley wasn't taking any complaining.

"We're doing this. Besides Lucas wasn't here for secret santa. Now we're all here!"

Maya glared at Lucas. "Thanks Ranger Rick. I blame you."

"Now remember it's a secret so no one say anything. Just pick a name and get the person a gift by the 14th."

The group groaned collectively before each went inside the box to pick out one of the little glittery slips that had a name written on it.

—-

On the 14th, before school, Maya went to Lucas' house before heading to Riley.

She carried a somewhat large rectangular object wrapped in plastic under her arm. The closer she stepped to the building the more she realized she shouldn't be here this early. But she didn't want to give it to him at school. People would be watching there. Definitely not at Topanga's either since there were many people there too. Besides, Riley had allowed them to give their gifts to their valentine whenever they could rather than with the group together. Mostly because they had all pleaded for her not to make it some huge deal. They just wanted to get it over with. Maya definitely wanted to get this over with quickly.

Before she even had a chance to enter the building Lucas was walking out with a gift in his hand. He noticed her immediately and raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"Aren't you supposed to be at Riley's? You always pick her up."

"Yeah I'm going. I had to give you the stupid Valentine's day gift."

"Oh. You're my secret valentine?" He chuckled. "I'm surprised you got me something."

"What do you mean?"

"You didn't get me a secret santa gift."

"You weren't even here." She handed him the frame under her arm. "Besides this might be same gift I was going to give you for Christmas."

Lucas took the rather large frame from her and looked at it.

"You can open it."

"It's not even wrapped." Not that he expected anything else. It was a miracle he even received anything, but now he was starting to think it was a prank. He slowly unwrapped the plastic off and realized it was a painting canvas. When he turned it around it was completely painted black.

"What the hell?" He looked towards the blonde who was smiling.

"It's your favorite color."

"Black is not my favorite color?!"

"Oh. Oops." Maya shrugged and chuckled. "Well I gotta go pick up Riley. See you at school Huckleberry."

"Wait." Struggling with the painting in his hand he managed to extend the bag in his hands towards her. "I got you for the valentine thing too."

Maya reluctantly took the bag, that happened to be very light, and stuffed it in her backpack. "Thanks."

"What? You're not gonna open it?"

"Later. It's getting late."

"I'm gonna go put this away in my room. There's no way I'm carrying this around school all day."

—-

Maya paced around in her room with a single paper in her hands. How could he have done this? How dare he have done this? She was panicking. How could this be possible? She read the words on the paper over and over again. We would like to thank you, Maya Hunter, for your submission…..highly prominent…our featured artist…full scholarship to our 8 week summer program…

Those words couldn't possibly be about her. Yet there was her name on top. She wished she hadn't opened the stupid gift. She wished that she didn't have the urge to call that stupid cowboy at 12:43 in the morning. She grabbed her cellphone and waited. He was probably asleep.

"Hello?"

"What is this?" Maya yelled harshly.

"You're gonna have to be more specific."

"I'm not playing games, Huckleberry. What am I reading?"

"Your gift?"

"W-why would you do this?"

"Because you're talented Maya. I took a picture of one of your paintings and submitted it to the contest. I know you were afraid and didn't apply so I did it for you. You won. I knew you would."

"I don't- I- thank you, Lucas."

"Let the world see your talent, Maya."

There was a moment of silence on both ends of the phone call before Maya spoke again.

"Well now I feel bad. My gift was terrible."

Lucas looked over at the painting now hanging in front of his bed. When he had turned off the lights to his room he had realized the painting wasn't just the color black at all. It was a dark blue. Within the frame of the painting Maya had placed little LED lights making it look like a sky full of stars. Just like the stars of Texas he always missed. He didn't know how she had done it, but it was absolutely beautiful.

"No. Don't feel bad. You got it just right. That's my favorite color."

—-

/Thanks for reading!/