Cory climbed into his dad's car, adjusted the seat, tugged the mirror into place, pulled on his seat belt and smoothed a wayward eyebrow, telling himself all the while that no one suspected. He was staying at his best friends empty apartment to say goodbye the night before he moved to New York for the rest of his life. There was nothing weird about that. Topanga was in New York with her sister, Angela was in Europe with her father, Jack and Rachel were probably on their flight to Nigeria and a new life in the Peace Corp by now and Eric was staying the night in Boston where he had dropped them off at the airport. There was no one to walk in on an inopportune moment. It was going to be the first risk free night they'd had since they shared a dorm room before Cory got married. And even then they had been scared someone would find out if they weren't really quiet.

Cory took a deep breath and backed out of the garage, trying to concentrate on having an uninterrupted, no worries night with Shawn, and trying to avoid thinking about the fact that tomorrow he would be in his and Topanga's new apartment in New York. Or about how Shawn coming all the way to New York, or him going all the way back to Philadelphia would make people suspect. Or about how nearly impossible it would be for he and Shawn to sneak off together if they did visit. Just sneaking off in the last few months had been nearly impossible. Stolen kisses and quick hand squeezes in dark movie theaters and sometimes dark corners were as much as they had been able to hide recently.

"God bless being the only two with late finals," Cory sighed to himself as he pulled out of the driveway and glanced at the tree house. A shiver ran down his spine as he cruised down the street.

The tree house.

They'd been 16, giggling away in the tree house, putting together the high school newspaper article to end all high school news articles.

"Chick Like Me. We are so brilliant," Cory crowed scribbling in his note book as fast as he could. Shawn sat next to him leaning against the wall of the tree house, grinning.

"I can't believe it worked, " Shawn laughed, "I mean, I didn't think I was that convincing a girl."

"Oh yeah? Take a look at those babies," Cory slapped an envelope of pictures on Shawn's leg. Shawn started flipping through them.

"These are all of me?"

"Yeah, Cora took them," Cory said in a gravely smokers voice, grinning proudly. He had been the worst woman who had ever lived, but he couldn't just let Shawn go off on a date with that guy. It was his column after all.

"Hey pick a couple out for the article. This is front page material my Shawn!"

Shawn finished going through the pictures, and then separated them into piles. Cory stopped at the end of a likely looking sentence, grabbed the pile next to him and looked at the picture on the top.

"Wow," Cory said.

"What?" Shawn asked looking up from the stack of pictures he was going through again.

"Look at you," Cory said, handing the picture to Shawn.

Shawn wrinkled his nose, "Don't tell me you want to put this one in the paper Cor,"

"Why not? You look beautiful."

Shawn laughed and rolled his eyes, "Thanks"

Cory looked at the picture again.

"Isn't it weird how pictures can look nothing like you?" Shawn asked watching Cory carefully.

"Are you kidding?" completely guileless, Cory leaned across Shawn to hold the picture next to his face.

It was a picture he had snapped of Shawn, or rather Veronica, as he sat down at lunch. He was looking down as he set his tray on the table and there was a sort of serenity in his face, his neck arched poetically and his wig fell into his eyes in the same way that his normal hair did, Cory had never realized how much that brought attention to his deep brown eyes. He looked completely, utterly beautiful.

As Cory held the picture up to Shawn's face the fleshy part of Cory's palm brushed against Shawn's cheek. And suddenly... it clicked.

Cory had never really thought of Shawn as attractive. Sure he'd been intensely jealous of the fact that his best friends hair actually moved, and annoyed by the fact that girls had always found Shawn way more desirable then himself. But he was Shawn. And suddenly as a tingle ran down Cory's spine he had just become... well, still Shawn, but Shawn with a whole new realm of possibilities.

"Cor?"

Cory snapped back to the world and realized that he had been staring at Shawn a little too long. He cleared his throat and lowered his eyes quickly, and saw that his arm had erupted in goosebumps...and so had Shawn's.

Cory looked back up at Shawn, who very carefully grabbed Cory's arm and put it around his own waist.

"Shawny?"

Neither had ever been sure who had leaned in first but suddenly Shawn was kissing Cory and Cory was kissing Shawn and that was all that mattered until hours, days and weeks later when both boys lay on the floor of the tree house face to face as they started to drift off to sleep.

"Cory?" Shawn whispered, "We've got to be careful."

"What do you mean?"

"No one... I'm... It's just," Shawn took a deep breath, "Cory, no one can know. I'm finally back home with both of my parents, I can't screw that up. And if something happens.. I mean... no one is going to take me in if they think..." his voice trailed off into the darkness.

"Yeah," Cory agreed, then feeling more was expected, "I don't want to hurt Topanga either. So we don't tell anyone," then more eagerly, "But we can keep..."

"I don't know if we should."

"If we're careful?" Cory demanded.

Shawn let out a long sigh, "Okay. If we're careful."

Cory smiled and kissed him shyly.

"We should sleep on separate sides," Shawn had said.

The phrase reverberated through Cory's mind as he parked the car. It echoed among all his other memories of Shawn. Stealing John Adams High's radio show in the 8th grade. Saving him when a slew of his ex girlfriends chained him up in a boat house. The time they'd gotten drunk and said they loved each other. Saving him when he joined a cult. Running across the highway of doom to reunite Shawn's family. The time they had helped Feeny woo Dean Bolander. The time Feeny had challenged Shawn to get sold out super bowl tickets and go to a game across the country, Topanga to stay out of it, and Cory to help them both.

"Topanga," Cory said to himself. Well, they had memories together. Like the time...she'd made him watch chick flicks, or when they went shopping for slacks or baked muffins. Or the millions of times she'd nagged him and tested him. Or the time when she'd admitted she resented giving up Yale for him.

Still trying to think of a happy memory of Topanga he knocked on Shawn's door, which opened immediately. Shawn grabbed his arm, pulled him inside, slammed the door behind him and kissed him forcefully, and Cory gave up on his search for a better memory of Topanga.