Notes: Is this the direction I was originally planning on? No. Is it long enough to really be considered a chapter? Probably not. Am I happy with it and posting it anyways to give myself a little victory? Abso-fucking-lutely.

Please be aware I'm going to smack a general content/trigger warning on this chapter, for some non-graphic, veiled references to depression/suicide/death.

In this chapter, the show continues and Lucas makes a mistake.

"And we'll linger on, time can't erase a feeling this strong."

Outside of his grandfather, Lucas has never had a great relationship with any member of his family. They wanted him to be stoic, strong, and excel at the family businesses, and when he wasn't any of those things (at least not in the ways that they deemed acceptable) they made their displeasure known quite clearly. If they weren't lecturing him behind the closed doors of the family ranch and calling him every manner of a disgrace to the family name, they were freezing him out and ignoring him entirely.

In the privacy of his own therapy, Lucas would even be willing to admit that he hates them for what they put him through and the tough decisions that they forced him to make.

And still, watching the stilted, off-key karaoke tribute to Riley that her father is fumbling through, Lucas is suddenly incredibly grateful that he was born to the Friars, and that Friars don't participate in spectacles.

He has no idea how Riley is able to stay in the face of such brutal humiliation.

Granted, she's strong. Lucas knows that. There's a certain courage and resolve that a person needs to step away from the world they grew up in and forge a new path for themselves, and that's not a fire that just goes away. It's tucked away somewhere inside Riley, most likely fuelling every moment thus far of the trip.

Lucas knows Riley's strength. He knows her fire and her softness and so many of the pieces in between and he doesn't want to her to burn out any of it, dealing her mess of a family.

He slides his hand down around hers, weaving their fingers together. "What do you want me to do?"

It takes Riley a long moment to answer him. So long, in fact, that Lucas worries the pallor of her face and her glassy, unblinking stare are signs that she's actually slipped right through her horror and embarrassment into genuine shock. And then when she does speak, her voice is so soft and broken and it actually takes her more than once to get what she wants to say out without crumbling. It hardly makes him feel better about her reaction to her father's performance, and leaves him wondering how he's going to be able to help her. "I-...I think I'm ready to go back to the hotel now."

"We can do that." Lucas draws her as close as he dares, wrapping an arm around Riley's shoulders, and starts navigating the crowd. He stands tall as they walk, schooling his expression carefully; he knows with the right posture and expression on his face he can come off as an intimidating kind of guy, and he is more than willing to use that to his advantage if it means getting out of there before anything somehow manages to get worse.

It mostly works. Riley leans into him as they walk, and although most of the partygoers who don't have their phones out to film Mr. Matthews massacring Mariah Carey are instead seeking out Riley to stare, point, and snicker at, none of them are actually brave enough to approach and say anything to her face. Auggie is the only person to look like he might dare, and even he hesitates enough that they blow past him. Eventually some of the smarter guests start to clear a path for them. All Lucas has to do is keep Riley upright and guide her out.

The singing cuts out when they're almost at the exit and Lucas can't help but feel a little relief that someone is finally stepping in to put a stop to the situation, even if it is far too little too late. If someone had just gotten up there at the start of the little show, or better yet before Cory had managed to get going at all, Riley would have been spared being the center of another drama and might have managed to enjoy the night in spite of the smaller spats earlier.

Of course, the silence is almost immediately broken by Cory blustering in protest so...the relief is quite short lived.

"No, I have to finish. Riley needs to know this."

"Cor, you've made your point. I'm sure that-,"

"No, no. You're always doing this. Always interfering."

It's Eric's voice that Cory cuts off and Lucas is only a little surprised when Riley pulls out from under his arm and turns to see what's happening now; given that her Uncle is one of the only family members it appears that she's actually still close with, it's practically a given that she'd put aside taking care of herself to see what happens between him and her dad.

When Lucas turns around Cory is still ranting, shrugging out of Eric's attempts to grab onto him and guide him off the stage.

"-acting like you know Riley better than me. Like you know what's best for her better than I do. Well you don't, Eric. I'm her father. Not you. Not. You. And I know she needs to hear this."

It's hard to miss the shadow that crosses Eric's face at Cory's words. Harder still not to notice the low, cold edge that invades his tone when he replies. "If you want to be her father so bad then fucking act like it. Get off the stage and sober up before you do something you won't be able to fix."

"Well if you want to be a father so bad how about you man up and have some kids of your own and stop stealing mine."

Riley's hand flies to her mouth with a choked gasp. Around them the crowd titters. Lucas notices several guests still have their phones out, filming the whole encounter as disheveled Cory squares up in front of his brother, and he's torn between grabbing Riley and resuming their exit or getting up on the stage to put a stop to things before they get worse; the last thing anyone in the family needs is for their dirty laundry to be spread across the internet (and with a sitting senator involved it would certainly only be a question of when it goes viral, not if).

Eric speaks again before Lucas can decide, losing a lot of the restraint that had been keeping his temper even. "Just because Riley decided she'd rather spend her time around the family that let's her live the life she wants to instead of following in her dad's ridiculously high-standard footsteps doesn't mean anyone's stealing her from you, Cor. It means you're a shitty father."

"Everything was fine until you got involved." Cory shoves at Eric with his good hand; Eric steps back, though Lucas is certain it's more out of surprise than anything else.

"You're the one who called me!"

"Yeah. To give Riley the Mr. Squirrels lesson! 'Lose one friend. Lose all friends. Lose yourself.'" Cory follows Eric forward, staying squarely in his space and gesturing wildly. "The choices Riley was making were gonna make her lose her friends. You were supposed to get her back onto the right path! Everything would have been fixed and back to normal in a couple of days if you had just done your stupid wise idiot routine, but no. You had to stick your nose in family business and sweep Riley away from us!"

"If I hadn't convinced her to leave, you wouldn't even have a daughter!" Eric steps back, swinging his arm to bat away Cory's pointing finger.

The momentum sends an unbalanced Cory to the ground. He just narrowly avoids landing on his injured arm. The party falls dead silent.

A part of Lucas knows he should leave. He should look away from the fight, grab Riley and get her out before anyone else can notice. There's no point in subjecting her to the aftermath of whatever this winds up being and no matter what Cory and Eric let slip, it's unlikely that she needs to hear it. That's if she doesn't already know it. No, the responsible thing to do, the professional thing to do would be to get his client out of there and find out what, if anything, he can do to help her deal with the aftermath.

But a part of Lucas is also curious. Riley's been so close-mouthed about her past. And yes, it's not really his business, considering they're not really dating...they're not even really friends because that's not what he does with clients, but he's done a lot of things with and for her that he wouldn't normally do with clients. He just can't seem to maintain his professional walls around her.

This is no exception. The part of him that's curious teams up with the part of every person's brain that keeps them unable to look away from horrific disasters and keeps him staring at the Matthews on the stage.

"Bullshit." Cory spits, fumbling to get back on his feet. Everyone is too preoccupied with watching the entire trainwreck to move to help him.

"What? Can't handle the truth?"

"Riley wasn't...She wouldn't have… She was fine!"

"She was broken, you just didn't want to see it!" Eric counters. "What you and Topanga and everyone else was doing was killing her, but her misery didn't fit with your picture perfect plans so you ignored it. You pretended it wasn't there and that she was just being difficult, because god forbid things don't work out the way Cory Matthews wants them to."

"You're just-,"

"I stepped in," Eric interrupts, clenching his jaw as he swallows around his emotions, "and convinced her to leave because she was barely a shadow of the Riley that I knew, and I was terrified that if I left without her it would have been the last time I saw her. So if you want to blame me, then fine. I took Riley away from you. But if you think for one second that makes me the bad guy...we're done here."

Eric blows past his his brother and storms off the stage, shoving his way into the crowd and signalling the end of the confrontation.

Only the crowd has barely started buzzing, trying to decide who to look for or what to gossip about first when a primal roar cuts through the rising chatter and Cory runs, launching himself headfirst after Eric. He lands his target and they both go tumbling to the floor. The crowd is too deep to see what happens next, but Lucas can hear the agonized cry, indicating that executing a diving tackle didn't go too well for the man whose arm is in a sling.

Lucas turns to see if Riley is going to let the nurse in her take over once again and go to her father's aid. She's not there.

Shit.

His chest constricts. She's nowhere in his immediate eye line and the crowd is dense and full of brunettes. Unless he had been watching her move-and he hadn't even noticed she had left he was so caught up in the drama-he wouldn't stand a chance of spotting her. If she was even still at the restaurant at all.

Riley had had a deeply personal secret exposed. By one of the only people she trusts to a crowd of strangers and people that don't seem to like her very much, if at all. And he had been too busy trying to glean any information about her that he could to do what she had hired him to do and protect her from it. It's no wonder she had run.

And he hadn't even noticed.

Shit.