"Do you ever think about not coming back? I mean, I get why you're here for this. It's Auggie's wedding, and he's a good guy and your brother so that's pretty unavoidable but outside of this...why are you even talking to them at this point?"

Riley doesn't have an answer. At least, not one that feels good or makes sense. It's not that she hasn't thought about Lucas' question before. It circles in her brain every time she picks up the phone and her mother is on the other line. And every time she gives in and makes the trek to visit for the family occasions that the whole Matthew's clan comes together to guilt her into attending. And then after every one of these incidents her therapist poses similar questions.

She never has a suitable answer other than, 'They're family,' which she knows isn't much of an answer at all.

Because she's well aware that family doesn't start and end with blood, and family is largely meant to love and support you unconditionally. At this point her parents and most everyone else are little more than 'sharers of DNA', and if she did owe them anything for that, that ship had sailed years ago.

But for all Riley knows this and for all she has managed to distance herself, she hasn't been able to take the final steps and cut the cord for good. There has always been that one tiny speck of hope, beaten up and shrunken as it may be, that something will spark in someone if she toughs it out, and maybe things will get better.

Hope.

As if it hadn't felt stupid enough to be clinging to hope before tonight.

She doesn't know how she can possibly explain to Lucas that she keeps putting herself through these emotional hurricanes for what has proven to be the most hopeless of hopes. She'd stand a better chance of winning the lottery, and she's never even bought a scratch ticket. But still she's wasted years hoping for this. It's embarrassing enough to admit to herself let alone to speak out loud to someone else.

It's a minor miracle that she doesn't have to. The buzzing of a cell phone cuts through the night air and Lucas stops looking at her expectantly in favor of digging their phones out of his pocket to find the offending device. When he holds out her glowing screen she nearly declines to look, wary of what text message she'll find.

Riley forces herself to look anyway and immediately wishes she hadn't.

Watch as Eric Matthews' Brother Airs Family's Dirty Laundry and Picks a Fight with the Senator at Karaoke Party Gone Wrong!

"Oh no…"

Riley grabs the phone and swipes open the news alert; it brings her to a brief Buzzfeed article that sums up the whole affair quite succinctly and, fortunately or unfortunately depending on your point of view, accurately without embellishment. The article ends with an embedded video that Riley can see from the thumbnail starts with her father barging onto the stage and a promise that more information is to come.

"What is it?"

"Someone posted a video of my dad's 'performance' online. And somehow Buzzfeed already found it and realized that it features a sitting senator…" Riley closes the article just as quickly as she had opened it, vaguely aware that Lucas is on his phone now, probably searching to see the article. She stares at her own screen trying to decide what she needs to do. Eric's staff have probably already seen and contacted him to figure out a response and he doesn't need her interfering there. "God, as if the night hasn't been bad enough…"

To Lucas' credit, even though he slips an arm around her shoulders, he doesn't offer her any platitudes about how it's not a big deal or not her fault. There's no minimizing the impact of a YouTube video or a Buzzfeed article-in all likelihood this will be the talk of the morning news shows and tabloid fodder for who knows how long-and she can't ignore the fact that the whole mess happened because her dad wanted to talk to her; if she had just sucked it up and listened to whatever ramblings he had come up with, he wouldn't have gone up on stage and sung that horrible song. Then Uncle Eric wouldn't have tried to stop him and they wouldn't have fought…

Or even more to the point if she had just swallowed things down years ago none of this would have come up at all.

"Why don't we head back to the inn?" Lucas suggests, starting them walking without waiting for a reply. "That way you're there if Eric or Linda need anything and if they don't we can try and get some sleep. I don't know about you but this morning feels a few days away to me at this point."

The tired edge to Lucas' comment is just enough to cut through Riley's haze of self-castigation and snap her back to the reality of the situation; they had gotten up early to have breakfast before a wedding party dance rehearsal, then dealt with the shucking accident on the cruise, then the karaoke party from hell, then their lengthy walk and talk down the beach, and now this unfortunate news alert. Any one of those things would have made for a long day and they had gone through all of it. No wonder she's exhausted.

She leans her head down onto Lucas' shoulder as they walk, suddenly feeling the weight of every punch the day had thrown at her. "Sleep sounds...perfect."

They make their way back to the inn in a weary silence.

Falling asleep isn't nearly as hard as Riley expects it to be when they finally get back to their room. Unfortunately, waking up comes far earlier than she wants it to when her phone pings with a text from her Uncle Eric, asking to talk. While she isn't thrilled to be pulled from her sleep early after such an exhausting and emotionally fraught day, Riley does want to see Eric so she carefully extricates herself from Lucas' arms and finds herself a pair of shorts and linen shirt to slip into. Still feeling guilty for everything she has asked of Lucas thus far, especially yesterday, Riley opts for writing him a note on the bed and breakfast stationary, letting him know that she's getting coffee with Eric rather than waking him before she ducks out of the room.

She meets Eric in the lobby of the inn, and though her Uncle seems hesitant to approach when he sees her, Riley is quick to pull him into an embrace; last night's confrontation had hardly been his fault-he had just been trying to get Cory off that stage.

"Ri, I am so sorry." He apologizes as they pull apart. "I wasn't even thinking last night and my mouth and my temper got ahead of my common sense."

"It's all right." Riley assures, and she finds that she's not lying. Of course she'd prefer that her personal life and mental health struggles not be a matter of public consumption, particularly with the existence of a video that people she knows and works with could potentially tie to her, and she'd been plenty mortified to watch the confrontation play out, but talking with Lucas and sleep had helped her to absorb the reality of the revelations and she's finding that it doesn't scare her. If anything it's something of a relief; she's spent so long hiding her pain from the very people who were at the root of it and in giving them that sort of free pass she's kept the weight of the burden across her own shoulders. Distanced from the moment of embarrassment, there's something freeing about having that weight lifted up, even the tiniest bit.

Eric doesn't look any less repentant. "No, it's not. It wasn't my place to say any of what I did."

"Yeah, but it's OK. Really." Riley says. They start to walk, leaving the bed and breakfast and heading down the street towards the center of town. "It was...shocking to hear. Not something I expected or wanted to have out in the world." To say the least. "But I'm starting to realize that the people who would judge me or use things against me...are already doing that. So I might as well do what's best for me, and I think that includes being honest about where I was back then."

"That sounds like a pretty good mindset to have."

"I think it will be." Riley pauses, waiting to see if her uncle will make any further comments or attempt at apologies. When he doesn't, she moves to offer her own redress. "In any case, last night only happened because I got you caught in the middle."

"What? Riley, that's ridiculous." Eric protests, but Riley shakes her head.

"Would you have even gone up on that stage if Cory had been trying to get someone else's attention?" Calling her dad by his first name is another little thing that happens without thought, but doesn't exactly feel wrong; Cory hasn't acted like her parent or earned the respect of one from her in over a decade, and if last night had shown her anything it's that maybe some things aren't worth fighting to repair anymore. Not if making those repairs means sacrificing herself.

Eric sighs. "That doesn't make last night your fault, Ri."

"Uncle Eric, if anybody else had gone up there, things wouldn't have gotten so personal...he went after you because you took care of me. And now that video's out there and -,"

"That video is not gonna be a problem for me." Eric cuts off Riley before her rant can get going. "I've got a good PR team and I'm not exactly the asshole featured in that little film. Plus it's not even the worst stuff that's ever been said about me to make the news. Or said by me."

His calm acceptance is somewhat of a soothing balm on Riley's worries although it's hard to let them go entirely.

"A statement or two, a couple of family-oriented Instagram posts, and one or two news cycles and this'll barely be a blip on anybody's radar."

If he's right, the video will be old news by the time the wedding is over. Considering how big of a deal it felt like when the news first broke that doesn't really feel possible, but Riley supposes her uncle knows more about public relations than she does; she quickly decides to go with his optimism and hope for the best, and to save her energy for the things she'll truly need it for. But even ignoring the video itself, she can and does feel bad that Eric and Cory had come as close to a knock-down, drag-out, come-to-blows fight as she's ever seen. While things have been frosty between the brothers ever since Eric had informed Cory that she had decided to live with him and finish high school in Virginia, the pair had always carefully danced around the tension, avoiding an actual fight. Under the influence of his painkillers, Cory had lost all restraint.

And it could have all been avoided if she had just talked with Cory when he had first approached her at the party instead of balking and leaving Lucas to get rid of him.

Riley says as much and is surprised when Eric stops walking and pulls her away from the middle of the sidewalk, stopping in the shade of a building. He rests his hands gently on her shoulders and looks into her eyes. "Riley, I want you to listen to me OK? How Cory or Topanga or anyone else handles their feelings about this is not your responsibility. They're adults. And it's not your job to make them feel good or police their actions. It's never been your job."

Of course the rational, adult part of Riley knows this. She knows that she can't control what anyone does and that her first priority is meant to be her own health and safety, not the wants of anyone else (even if that anyone else is one of her parents). It's just hard to let that rational, adult part of her brain take charge over the part of her that's always been a self-conscious, take-the-world-on-her-shoulders people-pleaser.

Eric speaks again before Riley can formulate a reasonable response. "If one thing's clear to me after all this, it's that you've grown and they haven't, and as much as I wanted to think that somewhere deep down Cory and Topanga only wanted what was best for you and were really, really, misguided, all they care about is the end result being what they want, not what it does to you or anyone else. They don't respect you. And you should never feel obligated to deal with someone that can't even offer you that."

"Did you get things straightened out?" Lucas asks, standing from his seat at the dining room table on Riley and Eric's entry into the room. Upon waking to an empty bed Lucas had been considering taking the morning as extra 'off' time until the room phone had rung. Linda had been on the other end of the line offering to share breakfast and some of her lessons learned on what it means to be a partner in the Matthews family; despite not being an actual partner, Lucas had agreed as he genuinely likes Linda and figures she might have some extra tips that could help him best be there for Riley. Thus far they've had a pleasant, if mostly serious, meal together and everyone else who has entered the dining room has averted their eyes and given the pair a wide berth. After everything Riley told him the night before, Lucas can't find it in himself to hold much sympathy for the embarrassed Matthews' clan.

He greets Riley with a brief kiss before she answers. "Yeah, we're good." She says.

"Definitely a good talk." Eric reaches around Linda to grab a slice of bacon off of her plate. He pops it in his mouth and talks around it as he chews. "What about you two crazy kids? Are you having a good morning?"

"Mmm, we're managing." Linda nods. She pulls Eric down over her shoulder to snag her own kiss.

Eric and Riley join them at the dining table. They don't provide any insight as to what exactly they had discussed over their early morning coffee run, but it's easy for Lucas to spot the new lightness that Riley is carrying herself with-a lack of tension that wasn't there before; whatever the pair had talked about, it appears to have done Riley good. She doesn't quite join in with the lighthearted banter that Eric and Linda start in on after a few moments of small talk, but even that she's relaxed enough to smile and enjoy their antics seems like a victory.

Then Auggie comes in and while Riley doesn't totally tense up at her little brother's presence, the spark in her eyes is quick to disappear. To be fair, the groom looks just as apprehensive and possibly more exhausted than his sister. "Riley! Thank god you're still here."

Riley frowns, furrowing her brow. "Of course I'm still here."

He seems to deflate. "After last night I thought maybe…"

"I'd never abandon your wedding, Augs. But I do think we need to talk."

"Was Uncle Eric telling the truth last night?"

Riley winces at Auggie's first question after they step outside onto the dining room balcony. She isn't entirely sure what, if any, questions she expected to be on her brother's mind but she had been at least a little hopeful that they would be able to ease into things a bit. Then again, he had just walked into the room worried that she may have left the wedding entirely without saying anything, and he likely needs more information and reassurance than she had initially been planning on; it's easy to forget that he's still only twenty.

She sighs. "About back when I first left to go live with him and Linda? Yeah."

Auggie falls back into one of the deck's chairs. "So if he hadn't come and seen you, you would have-,"

"Don't play the 'what if' game, Augs." Riley cuts him off, taking the seat next to him and resting a hand on his knee. "The point isn't what could have happened, it's what did happen. Uncle Eric got me to a place where I could take care of myself, away from all the pressures that were hurting me, and I'm doing so much better now."

"I just… I remember that you weren't happy and that mom and dad disagreed with the choices you were making, but I don't remember things being that bad."

Riley can see the gears of guilt grinding in Auggie's mind, as though not noticing things back then makes him a bad brother. "You were just a kid. You couldn't have known what to look for and I was definitely trying to keep the worst from you. I didn't want any of my problems to hurt you or your relationships."

"But you've had years… Why have you never told me exactly how bad things are between you and mom and dad?"

"Besides not wanting to do anything to your relationship with them that was perfectly fine?"

Auggie's eyes darken. "Maybe I don't want to have a good relationship with someone that could treat my sister like that."

"At the time, you needed your parents. And they love you so much...I figured as your older sister I needed to let you have that and I could just keep an eye on things from where I was. Be there for you if things started to change like they did with me. But for you they never did. My choices may not always have been the right ones, but they were the only ones I thought I could make."

Auggie takes the answer in, seemingly mulling things over before speaking again. "Have they gotten any better?"

Riley hears the tinge of hope in his question and knows her response isn't going to be the one that Auggie wants to hear. "No, not really." She watches his face become heaven more crestfallen. "But Auggie, I don't want you to feel like you have to change your relationship with them because of me. I know they've always been great parents to you and -,"

"But they were awful parents to you!" He protests. "They hurt you. For years. Why should they get away with that?"

"They're not." Riley says softly. Inwardly she prepares herself for what she's about to admit; it's a decision a long time coming, reached after years of thought and conversation after conversation and more introspection than she could even begin to catalogue, but it still feels like a massive step, particularly to admit to someone else. "Auggie, I will always, always support and be there for you, but when it comes to Cory and Topanga...who I am is never going to be enough for them. And they don't care what their actions do to me. So when it comes to them, I'm done."