("Oh, hush, my dear, it's been a difficult year
And terrors don't prey on
Innocent victims
Trust me, darling, trust me, darling."

"So look me in the eyes
Tell me what you see
Perfect paradise
Tearing at the seams
I wish I could escape
I don't wanna fake
Wish I could erase
Make your heart believe."

"But I'm a bad liar, bad liar
Now you know
Now you know
I'm a bad liar, bad liar
Now you know, you're free to go.")

- Imagine Dragons, "Bad Liar"

July 2017

5th year, age 17

"This is definitely against the rules," Farkle reminded Lucas as he tapped on his computer keyboard, his eyes flicking lightning fast across the screen. "I could get in trouble."

"Come on Farkle," Lucas sighed, leaning over him as he looked at whatever it was that Farkle was doing to get into the records system. "It's not like you're doing something illegal. You're just retrieving an address. Easy, right?" Lucas paused. "I could have asked Smackle; she's the tech expert-"

"Leave Smackle out of this," Farkle cut in annoyedly, not looking up from the screen.

Lucas raised one eyebrow but didn't say anything. In the mock missions and meetings that the team had had with their Science & Tech contacts, he had definitely noticed how Farkle seemed to be incredibly protective of his female counterpart - although whether that was because of her age, her social oblivion, or something else, Lucas wasn't sure.

"Why not just ask Josh?" Farkle pointed out. "It's his home too."

"He's not going to approve of me leaving campus," Lucas reminded him, amazed at how quickly Farkle could do this. "But I gotta know what's going on."

"How will you even get there?" Farkle asked.

"Bus," Lucas shrugged. "I'm willing to make the trip. Besides, she got there didn't she? It can't be that far."

"You're going to make this mistake and I can't stop you," Farkle sighed, resigned as he clicked something and Lucas felt his wrist buzz. "Sent the address to your phone and wrist band. Good luck."

Lucas frowned down at the line of text. "This can't be right," he muttered, before looking up at Farkle. "This address is like a twenty minute walk off campus."

Farkle shrugged. "That's the address on file for Riley and Josh."

Lucas stared down at his phone. "Then I don't know why…" He left the statement hanging as he picked up his bag and headed for the door out of Farkle's dorm. "Thanks Farkle."

"If I get caught I'm selling you out!" Farkle called just before Lucas closed the door.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

Lucas scanned the line of names next to call buttons, noticing 'Matthews' next to 3B. So he clicked 3A - 'Irene Johnson'. Irene was a pretty old name.

"Hey, I'm supposed to come see my aunt but I lost my key, she's not answering and I'm worried, can you buzz me in?" Lucas lied in a rush, profiling the woman as a trusting elderly who cared for others.

"Oh, yes, of course," came the reply through the intercom. "Please come up, I hope she's alright!"

As the buzzer went off and the door clicked open, Lucas slipped in, feeling slightly guilty for taking advantage of an old woman - but also a little proud that his psych profiling training had worked. He took the steps two at a time, and before he was actually ready he found himself in front of the Matthews' apartment door.

Now that he was here, he was seriously thinking twice about this. This behavior was dangerously close to stalker activity - not to mention going behind Josh's back, and getting Farkle to break the rules for him.

But he was already here, so he rang the doorbell and glanced down at his rapidly increasing heartbeat. When the door opened, Lucas realized, one second too late, that there was a chance he would come face to face with Director Matthews.

When Riley's face stared back at him instead, he felt relatively better. Relatively.

"What the hell are you doing here, Friar?" Riley accused, her eyes wide at seeing him, of all people, on her doorstep.

Lucas felt like three seconds lasted hours as he stared at Riley, his mind taking in a flash of her appearance and analyzing causes and effects.

Riley Matthews was wearing a dress. A yellow, sun dress with a tight bodice and loose short sleeves, and a skirt that fell in soft folds down to her knees. Her hair was loose too, much longer than Lucas would have expected - it fell all the way past her bosom. Lucas felt like he was looking at an opposite twin of his teammate, not the girl he'd known and learned everything about for the past three years.

"You left me hanging with no explanation," Lucas pointed out, coming out of his short lived observing haze to answer her question. "You also didn't really answer any emails." He'd meant the statements to come out neutral or as an implied question, but he realized quickly that the words he'd used sounded like an angry accusation.

Apparently, Riley agreed. Her eyes narrowed a little. "It was a fast decision; when I heard my little brother was sick I left that day."

A pause strayed between the two.

"I didn't realize your family lived so…" Lucas glanced around the room, "close."

Riley's eyes fell to the floor, the slight anger dissipating.

"I guess, the way you always talked about home, it seemed so far away," Lucas suggested.

"Not far, just… distant," Riley explained quietly, hugging her arms around herself. "Auggie isn't allowed to come to the academy until he's admitted, and my dad is a middle school teacher. And when he's not working, he's the full time parent for a nine year old, so, you know."

"They're busy," Lucas concluded. "When Maya told me your little brother was sick, I kind of expected you would be back soon."

"I decided to stay here for the summer," Riley admitted vaguely.

When she turned to lead Lucas further into the house, he followed, ending up in her bedroom, to his shock. The room seemed so different from the Riley he knew; the serious Riley was a total contrast to the bright, happiness of her home bedroom. The walls were a pale purple that matched her bedding - also printed with flowers. The curtains around the large window were a pastel orange color, the vanity was an odd purple and green combination, the shaggy carpet was a teal green, and even the desk chair was a bright blue color. The colors weren't the only thing that was shocking; the decoration was so exciting and comforting at the same time that Lucas almost felt at home. Patterned throw blankets and pillows, art and photos of her and her family and friends when she was younger on the walls, little tchotchkes on her desk and jewelry on top of her dresser all made the room have a personality that Lucas just didn't see in Riley.

Of course, Riley hadn't really lived in this room since she was a preteen, so it would make sense that it had a preteen-style. It would make sense her personality had changed, but the room had not changed to match.

"Your room is really nice," Lucas said, and Riley flushed red.

"We're only in here so we can talk privately," she insisted, evidently humiliated for some reason. "Nothing you see here can leave the room."

Lucas frowned. "You mean metaphorically, right? Because I wasn't going to steal-"

"Metaphorically." Riley stared in his eyes. "You can't talk about my home life or my room or family when we're at school. Got it?"

Bewildered at her adamant insistence, he nodded. "Why would you care who knew about your childhood bedroom?"

"It's not just…" Riley trailed off, shaking her head as her eyes fell to her hands, resting in her lap over the skirt of her yellow sun dress.

Lucas really looked at her, then, past the initial shock of her different look, and saw the things he didn't before. The flared sleeves of the dress. The bright colors she was wearing. The curls in her hair, for once let down out of a tie. The layered necklaces and stud earrings, the pale pink color on her glossed nails, it all was too detailed for her to just throw on a dress from a few years back. Riley had worked hard on this outfit, cared about the little details of what she was wearing, and just that fact made her seem both more relaxed, and more anxious at the same time.

"This is who you really are," Lucas realized slowly.

Riley shifted uncomfortably. "Not… not fully. I have a mild dissociative identity disorder - not like two different people, but two drastically different versions of the same one. I developed the one who you know over a few years of… struggles." She seemed to be struggling to find the right words, and she still hadn't looked up from her lap. "Sometimes it feels like that version of me really is a different person, though. Psychology class says that girl protects this one," she added, referring to her current self, "from everything I put myself through at the academy."

"That does not sound healthy." Truthfully, Lucas was struggling to get what she was talking about. He couldn't imagine being two different people - two different personalities - with the consciousness that he was one of two.

"I didn't deal well with change, so I created someone who did - someone who could change and mold, separate from me," Riley said slowly. "So I didn't… lose me."

"You never evolved." Lucas blinked. "You never grew up. At least, this you didn't."

"And that's why I hide her," Riley pointed out softly.

Riley was now using 'her' to refer to two different sides of herself, and it was mixing up in Lucas's head - although he understood, at the very least, that Riley was actually opening up to him, with something she was terrified of exposing. It was more than he had ever seen in her, especially since, in the last few weeks, she seemed to have been withdrawing into herself. As if she were hiding.

On the verge of a psychotic break.

And suddenly, Lucas understood why Riley had decided to move home for the summer. She needed time to let her mind go through this and reset, without having to force herself into the… Lucas thought a moment. The dark Riley, he realized. The one he knew was the dark version of herself, in pretty much every sense of the word.

"Please say something," Riley whispered, and Lucas realized that he had been staring silently at the floor for several minutes. "You think I'm crazy." She rose quickly, moving away from him.

"No, I don't," Lucas rushed to assure her, standing to grab her arm and halt her. "You're…" Now he was struggling to find the right words. "You reacted to the situation you were put in. Not by choice, none of this was by choice. Not the situation, not the school, not the reaction. You…" he paused, "you had no control, so you created something you could control."

"Now you're just reciting psychology texts," Riley cracked a smile, and Lucas's chest lifted a little in relief.

Relief that he had made her feel a little less crazy, at the very least.

"Well what are those classes for anyways?" He pointed out, smiling back. He paused to think for a moment. "You're not crazy, Riley, you're strong. I've known that since the first time I met you, the girl who didn't give up, manipulated me into accepting your help. Sure, you made some stupid decisions," Lucas thought back to Riley sparring on broken limbs, "but they were all to protect you, your personalities. This isn't coming out right," he realized, closing his eyes.

"Lucas," Riley murmured, and Lucas opened his eyes to see Riley's two inches from his. "I… I have to admit something."

Lucas couldn't breathe; this was the first time he had been this close to Riley, face to face, not in a sparring or acting exercise, but real. He could feel the warmth coming off her body and smell the vanilla scent of her hair, and looking into her eyes he could see a girl he realized he was just now getting to know.

"I… wasn't that drunk."

Immediately understanding, Lucas's mind shot back to the night of the Operations party.

"My mom hates me, and my dad and my brothers are scared of her. No one cared enough, and I stopped caring too. What the hell was I supposed to do? Why did you have to show up?"

"What do you mean?"

"Not caring is easier after you get used to it. I don't want to care about you."

"You care about me?"

"You care about me. You're the only one. But I'm not supposed to care about you. I was better at lonely."

"You wanted me to know," Lucas said softly, just loud enough for the words to carry the few inches between them.

"You were the only one who cared enough to listen," Riley repeated, her eyes staring deeply into his, so deep he was sure she could see into his soul.

"I needed to make sure you were okay," Lucas insisted, breaking eye contact to let his gaze fall down. "Ever since I broke your arm. I told you about why I was sent to prison, Riley. I didn't know what I was doing that day, and the moment I thought I didn't know what I was doing with you I was scared you'd get hurt." He took a deep breath. "That fear hasn't gone away. The longer we spend together, working together, growing together, the more I want to know about you - to make sure all of you is okay."

"Lucas." When he looked into her eyes, he could see them glassing over. "I'm not allowed to emotionally complicate myself."

"I know."

"You have to go back to the academy."

"I know."

He could almost see the numbness setting back in; the Riley he knew, the one who didn't let anyone in was coming back, and it was his fault. He had come here, he'd brought the academy with him. And it seemed like there was nothing he could do; just watch as the girl in the yellow sun dress began to fade away. He had to break this loop.

He moved slowly, to not startle her, to not shock her into whatever change was happening. Her eyebrows furrowed as the seconds stretched into hours, his eyes begging her to just trust him. And the last bits of the girl in the yellow sun dress did, understanding what he was intending, what he was trying to do, the moment that his lips brushed softly against hers.

He was desperately hoping that doing something that would never happen at the academy would distance her, and him, from the mindset she was falling into. All he could do was hope as he closed his eyes and fitted his mouth to the shape of hers, feeling the relief and comfort in what he now realized he'd been aching to do. He felt like he was on the right path, when her right hand came up to rest on his shoulder and her palm pressed lightly against the fabric of his shirt, a grounding motion.

This was against all the rules of the Operations academy.

But they weren't at the academy right now.

As he broke contact and moved his head back, he could feel the worry set back in as she stared at him. If he had just made the wrong move, done something that would damage her, he'd never forgive himself. It felt like hours until Riley finally spoke.

"This isn't allowed," she whispered softly, before rising up on her toes and touching her lips to his again.

He felt every emotion he'd been lacking since the day he nearly killed that boy flooding through him all at once, and it was all he could do not to push more. Her hand was shaking a little, and he knew that she was probably experiencing too many emotions right now too.

And then he realized he hadn't let go of her hand, this whole time.

A/N: ...and that's what we call slow burn romance, folks.

I wasn't sure I'd be able to finish this chapter but alas, I am notoriously unreliable and sometimes it works in our favor. I've got mixed feelings about this chapter because I like parts of it but other parts I'm not happy with. However, I just decided to post it and see what you guys think. Rucas kind of kicked off all at once here and Riley's feeling hypocritical (we'll go more into that in her chapter) but also super confused and conflicted. After all, they didn't break the rules at the academy (tax loopholes ftw).

I'm sorry to my Rucas shippers, but Rucas isn't going to kick into high gear just yet. Riley's still terrified of breaking rules and opening herself up so this was a momentary lapse of judgement (in her eyes). When we get to the safehouse, that's when both ships start really going. In the meantime, prepare for slow burn Rucas and enemies to lovers Joshaya because that's what this story is.

(If you're looking for something more fluffy and relationship focused, Anecdoche is your fix.)

The end of my semester is wrapping up, meaning I have a bunch of homework and finals studying to do. As you all know (or at least those of you reading my author's notes), this situation leads to two options: I get my shit together and actually do the work and studying I have to do, or I procrastinate by writing. Soooooooo we'll see. Don't expect anything for the next 3 weeks, but I might surprise you 😘

Please review! I want to know your thoughts - I read all of them :)

Kisses,

C

P.S. To the guest who wished me happy thanksgiving, please know that you made me genuinely smile on a very difficult first holiday without my mom, and I truly appreciate you :)