A/N: This is a part of the Spring Break Chapter, I just wanted a reason to write more Cory Matthews freak out sessions. It's also the reason why Riley and Lucas are alone in that cabin… Listen if I can't write Cory bursting into the room and freaking out then what am I supposed to do!

Also, my job is back on campus now, crazy right, we're working on setting up for the fall semester and dealing with Covid, so updates might not be as close together since I get home exhausted, though I try to write a little bit everyday. I'm also going to work on another story for a different Fandom, but that's going to start next month, so hopefully I can finish this one before then.

Honestly she wasn't nervous about sharing a room with Lucas, it was actually really nice not having anyone around, what was making her nervous was that all of her friends, well with the exception of Zay, Charlie and Sam, were getting engaged and that was a step that she really wasn't ready for herself. She knew that she had to talk to Lucas about it and fast, she just wanted to have a normal relationship, though somedays she knew it wasn't going to happen anytime soon not with her father.

"Hey Lucas," she said staring at the sky painted on the ceiling. "You're not thinking about marriage, are you?"

She heard him laugh before pulling her into his arms. "You're so cute," he said kissing her forehead. "Not now, maybe in the future yes, I meant what I said freshman year of high school Riley, I have hope for us in the future."

"Good," she said snuggling into his chest. "You know this is really nice, the cabin, I think this is the first time I wasn't worried about my dad busting in and freaking out on us."

"And for that we should thank our friends by making the best spring break ever," he said to her. "It's also really nice to be alone for once, did you know that we're almost always surrounded by people?"

"I have noticed, it's almost as if we're in college or something," she said giggling, she stopped for a minute remembering what had happened the day before. "Lucas, are you okay?"

"Of course, I am, I have you."

"No, I mean, you were freaking out a little yesterday, and I know just how stressful the last year has been on the both of us. You're always taking care of me, but I worry that you're stretching yourself too thin."

He sighed, making her look up at his eyes. "You know me better than anyone, even Zay and he's known me since we were kids, but yeah I guess I am a little overwhelmed."

"Can I ask why?"

"Well between everything that happened last year with Zay, and then the thing that happened to you earlier this semester, of course adding school and worrying about the future, it's a lot to take in sometimes."

"I'm here for you, no matter what it is," she said kissing his chest right where his heart was beating, she could feel it just under his shirt, it reminded her that they had to look out for one another. "No Texas Lucas allowed, you've worked past that a long time ago."

"It's a different kind of stress compared to that, I'm not angry just I don't know, tired I guess," he kissed her on her head before continuing. "College is harder than I thought, and the future is a little scary now that I have to think about it."

"We'll get through it all together, not matter what, just remember to lean on me a little so that you don't… you know, blow up on anyone."

"I will," he said squeezing her a little closer to himself, right before letting out a big yawn. "Should we try and get some sleep?"

"I'm with you on that," she said as she settled onto the bed as Lucas spooned her from behind, his warmth reminding her that she needed to take better care of him because he sometimes forgot that he needed help just as much as the rest of them. "I love you Lucas," she said to him.

"I love you too Riley," he whispered into her hair, and she could feel him relaxing and falling asleep so she did the same.

Josh should have known that this trip was going to come back and bite him right in the ass, mainly because his brother was overprotective and slightly insane when it came to Riley. So, he should have stopped Maya from posting a picture on her Instagram of the group and tagging the cabins as their location. But they were on a trip, it was supposed to be a fun experience, so he had forgotten for a little while that his brother was insane. So, he should have seen the first message as a sign that things were about to go off the deep end.

Cory: You guys aren't in Virginia?

Cory: Where's Riley, she's not answering her phone.

Cory: Don't ignore me Josh

Cory: I blame you for this

Taking one look at his phone, at two in the morning he really didn't want to deal with what was happening, but there were fifty more messages on his phone all about how they had lied to him. They had never lied to his brother, they hadn't expected to have the truck breakdown on the way to their destination. He took one more look at the picture that Maya had posted only to notice that she had posted several photos one of which showed Lucas walking with Riley to the cabin with his arm around her. They were walking into their little cabin together, Josh knew that the two had been tired when they had left them just to get ready for bed, but the damage had been done.

Shaking Maya awake, he thought of what to say to his brother, "Maya get up we have a problem," he said while she grumbled.

"What," she called out loud enough that he was sure everyone else had heard. He didn't say anything he just showed her the long stream of messages on his phone. "Aww crap," she said sitting up and scrolling through his phone.

"You think, did you tag this place in the picture?"

"Yeah I think I did," she said and he knew that she was regretting it now, but they were on break and they thought that it wouldn't have been a problem, except for the fact that everything that involved Riley would eventually turn into ammunition for her father.

"What should we tell him?" she asked.

"The truth would be best."

"Just not the whole truth, like he was just walking her home, and that's it."

Josh: Car broke down, we found a place to stay, while it was being fixed.

He showed her the message and hoped that that would be the end of it, he didn't have to tell his brother everything.

"That's good enough," she said only just noticing that Farkle and Zay had both gotten up and were staring at them.

"Is there a problem?" Zay asked and Maya looked at the guys and sighed.

"My brother messaged me," he said just as another message came. "And he wants to know where Riley is."

Josh: She's sleeping Cory, just like any other normal human being at this hour.

"This is not going to go over well," Farkle said rubbing his eyes. "What are the odds of him showing up here?"

"Hopefully zero, can you imagine Mrs. Matthews taking that well," Zay said to the group just as Josh's phone buzzed again.

Cory: She better not be in the same bed as Lucas

Josh: Cory, my brother, please let us sleep

Cory: No, I want to know what my daughter is up to.

Josh: She's eighteen Cory, she's an adult… Don't make me call Topanga

The phone sat silent for a few minutes and he'd hoped that that would be the end of it, he got up and went to get some water and hopefully get back to sleep. When he returned Maya was staring at his phone with Farkle right behind her.

"I don't think that he's in New York anymore," Farkle said reading through the messages. "I think he's actually trying to find his way here."

"How do you know that?" Maya asked reading the same messages over and over.

"Look, the way they're spaced apart, the first ones came in quick succession whereas the more recent ones are spaced apart, he's somewhere maybe not nearby but close," Farkle said and from those words Josh knew what was coming.

"Give me my phone," he said to the pair just before Maya tossed it towards him, she let out a yawn and he knew that they were all tired, but this was something that they had to deal with and fast.

"What are you going to do?" Farkle asked him just as Josh pulled out his one trump card, his sister in law.

"I'm phoning a friend," he said with a smile. The phone rang for a few minutes before Topanga answered, her voice groggy.

"Josh… is something wrong?" she asked, and he knew that she was alert and up automatically.

"There maybe a slight problem headed our way," Josh answered, and he could hear her rustling around, most likely looking for his brother.

"What happened now?" she asked, and he knew that while she loved Cory, it was way too early in the morning for any of this. They were all tired, they all wanted to sleep, and at the moment the only people sleeping were Riley and Lucas, and well they were very much unaware of what was coming.

Josh explained the current situation, everything that had happened up to the moment where they found themselves at the cabins. How they all felt bad over what had happened and how they had wanted to make it up to Lucas and Riley. He could hear her sigh on the other line and then there was rustling on the phone.

"Give me directions to where you guys are, I'm coming to get that crazy husband of mine," she said and while it should make him happy that it would be taken care of he also wondered if there was a way to intercept his brother before anything happened.

Once he hung up the phone he turned towards the group, "She's coming down, I don't know if Cory is here but hopefully, he got tired of looking and took a break somewhere."

"Should we go back to bed?" Farkle asked first.

"More like should we warn Riley and Lucas," Zay said and they all knew that they were going to try and keep the couple out of it.

"Let them have their night, they don't need to know what's happening," Josh said while Maya wrapped her arms around his waist. "I'll take first watch, the rest of you can go back to sleep, we can trade off every two hours if need be."

The rest went off to bed as Josh settled himself in front of a window to see if his brother would show up at all. Maya brought her pillows over and laid down next to him. Thankfully the window had a bench and they could sit comfortably on it, or in Maya's case lay down on it. He hadn't meant to fall asleep, but it had happened and there had been no way around it.

From the moment he had seen the photos he had known that something was wrong, and so when he had sent the first few messages, he had hoped to get an answer quickly. When the answer hadn't come, he had sent more and more, when the answers never came, he decided to go find them himself. Waiting until his wife was sleeping, he went to his car and drove down towards the area where the photo had been tagged, the drive was longer than he was used to but he wasn't going to let his own daughter be defiled at such a young age.

The first reply came as when he wasn't far from his destination, he got turned around a few times because of it and ended up on a backroad and had to backtrack. Stopping at a gas station to fill up and fix his GPS, answering his brother and letting him know about his disappointment. If his own brother couldn't keep those two apart then who would. He loved that Riley is following her dreams, but he doesn't want her tied down with Lucas. He learned from his father-in-law's mistakes, he wasn't going to let anything happen to Riley. There was also the thing about how he felt like he had held back Topanga, even though she had chosen to be with him there had been days when he had felt guilty about it. He didn't want that life for Riley, he wanted her to have the chances that life gave her, but most of all he just wanted her to stay his little girl for just a little while longer.

When he finally pulled into the camp, he realized just how hard it was to find the right cabin from the pictures that Maya had posted. This probably had to do with the fact that it was four in the morning and pitch-black outside, the lack of lights at the place made it difficult to be able to tell one apart from the other. Sighing to himself, he decided on walking around until he found out where the kids were sleeping. Pulling out his phone he looked at the pictures comparing it with the campgrounds, seeing if anything matched. He should wait until the sun started to come up but it would be another two hours before that was possible.

"You know," he heard a familiar voice say from behind him making him stop what he was doing. "I knew you were crazy when we were kids but this takes the cake."

Cory turned around and saw the very familiar silhouette of his best friend standing a few feet away his arms cross. He couldn't figure out how Shawn had found him, or how the man had known where he was at all.

"Don't you have a baby to take care of?" he asked hoping to deflect from what he was doing.

"I do, and I was up feeding him while my wife slept, only to get a call from Topanga about how her wayward husband took off in the middle of the night to ruin spring break for his daughter," Shawn said with a sigh. "I get it you love that little bird of yours, but don't you think it's time for her to fly on her own?"

"You don't understand Shawn, that's exactly what I want to do, but if she's tied down to Lucas she wouldn't do anything," he said slumping down on a patch of grass where the trees hid them from anyone on the campgrounds.

"I don't think that's what's going on here, because you're the one person in the world who married their high school sweetheart and then proceeds to torture her just because you're afraid of your daughter growing up. I've seen Riley and Lucas, hell even Auggie and Ava, you have two kids who got lucky and found love early in their lives," Shawn sighed before joining him on the ground. "You know it took me too long to get to where I am, to have a relationship with my step daughter, but I'm not going to break into where Maya is and destroy the relationship we've built just because I think it's crazy that she wants to marry Josh. It's up to her to make that decision, it's not up to me."

"Oh please it's a million years before Josh proposes to Maya, they're young."

"Yeah, the audacity that your brother had asking me and Katy for Maya's hand in marriage only to get one upped by Maya, I mean how could she do that."

"What are you talking about?"

"Maya and Josh got engaged yesterday, they told us last night, and it was the craziest proposal story, but hell I have my own, you have your own."

Cory had to stop himself from screaming out just from hearing the news, this was exactly what he was trying to avoid and now his own flesh and blood has betrayed him, he was going to kill his own brother.

"Don't even think of doing whatever is going through that brillo head of yours, Maya is happy and that's all that really matters to me and her mother."

"But, it's crazy they're kids."

"That's a little hypocritical of you considering how old you were when you and Topanga got engaged, I mean didn't she propose to you at graduation or something."

"Oh, shut up you," he said with a sigh. "Topanga is going to kill me, she'll get away with it too because she knows how to work the law."

"No, she won't, she loves you and she knows your nuts about your kids, just maybe plan a trip with her, Auggie can stay with Katy, JC, and me, treat her right before she actually tries to kill you for pulling something crazy like this."

Sighing and stood up, brushing away the dirt and grass off of his pants, not that they were pants, he was still in his pajamas, god he was crazy wasn't he. "I need therapy, it's not healthy to worry this much about my own kid."

"It would be worse if you didn't care at all," Shawn said a reminder of his own past with his mother, or at least the woman he had thought was his mother.

The two older men left the campgrounds together, Shawn tailing him all the way back to New York as the sun rose on the coast. Josh never told Riley and Lucas about what her father had done, the two had enough to deal with as it is, they were allowed to be blissfully ignorant for a little while longer. Even if the outcome was that they had all been stressed until he had gotten an early morning text message from his brother saying that he hoped that they had a good time, and congratulations on his engagement. Josh was surprised by that, because the only people that knew at the moment were his parents and Maya's but in the end, he knew that Shawn must have been the one to tell him, they were family after all.