Lucas and Maya stayed in Raidville.

They hadn't intended to. But really, what did they have to return to in New York? Why pay for bus fare back to a place where they had lost people and lost each other? Lucas liked the slower pace of the tiny Maine town, and so did Maya, although for some reason she pretended she didn't.

They dated. They dated the heck out of each other. There was no subject on earth that they didn't cover. How they felt about terrorism. How rain was comforting. How zebras were just glorified horses. How Lucas was getting along as the town electrician. How Maya was getting better at kissing. How Lucas liked syrup on his scrambled eggs. Even though they covered everything, things were always changing.

Maya asked him to marry her every day when he met her at the door to walk her to the restaurant. After six months, he decided that he had given them enough time.

And he said yes.

They got married on the wharf, surrounded by all of their friends. Riley, Corey, Topanga, Farkle, Zay. They didn't have any money for a honeymoon, so the Matthews offered to pay for it. Maya didn't want them to. Neither did Lucas, really, but he couldn't stand the thought that Maya wouldn't get everything she was supposed to. It wasn't enough money to go anywhere exotic, but it was enough to rent a cabin in Colorado.

When they got back, they put a down payment on a tiny house. Maya quit her job as a waitress and started working instead as an art teacher in the local school. The school administrators didn't care that she hadn't finished college: she was good at her art and everyone could see that.

Lucas never became a veterinarian and never worked in a dojang. But in the end, some dreams don't turn out to be that important, do they? He had Maya Friar, and coming home to his own house and finding her trying and failing to get her art lesson ready and make dinner at the same time made dreams he had when he was younger seem worthless.

They were happy, for the most part.

Of course, not everything was beautiful all the time. Nothing ever is.

There were those nights when Maya would wake up at three a.m. and start crying, and Lucas would drive her to school in the morning and hold her hand. And then there were those nights Lucas couldn't sleep thinking about what would happen if he failed, and he couldn't take care of her, and Maya would sit up with him and call him names and make him tell her everything that he was afraid of.

Their life was so much more than those nights, though.

It was teaching a kid how to draw the things they had only ever seen in their heads, and fixing wires while talking about politics with the mayor. It was pizza with mushrooms and getting sand in their shoes when they walked on the beach.

Eventually, life was putting their kids to bed four times a night because they kept getting up to use the bathroom and get a drink of water; dinners with Riley and Farkle when they came to town for a visit; family hikes in the woods; late-night coffee at the table with tax returns and runs to the grocery store for diapers.

They knew they would lose each other eventually. Nothing lasted forever, whether they wanted it to or didn't want it to.

But they were comforted by the fact that, when it was time to say goodbye, it wouldn't be because they had chosen to say goodbye. They had chosen to love each other. That would always be true.

No matter what happened.

Hi! Thanks for reading. The response has been so positive, and all of your lovely comments have made quite a few of my days. Hope you enjoyed the ending. XXX