Shawn was devastated that Cory was leaving for New York for a lot of reasons. Shawn had lost everyone that had ever been important in his life. Cory was the only person who had ever kept his promise to never leave. And now even he was leaving. Shawn was going to have to stand alone when the only person who had stood beside him as everyone else walked out of his life, finally left.

But as grieved as he was that Cory was leaving, there was a small part of him that had been a little relieved. Angela was only going to be gone a year, and Shawn really did love her. He didn't love her as much as he loved Cory, but over the years he had almost given up hope that he could be with Cory. Cory was never going to admit he was gay. Shawn had hoped he might when Topanga moved to Pittsburg, or when he broke up with Topanga over Lauren. Shawn had been really been waiting for it in these past few months after the wedding when Cory had been getting more and more neurotic by the day... but it wasn't going to happen. And Shawn kept telling himself that waiting for Angela would get him through Cory leaving, and when she got back he'd be able to turn over a new leaf. Be faithful to her the way he should have been this whole time.

But Angela had called him yesterday. She'd been thinking, she said. She hadn't known how to say it, she knew this was a terrible way to do it, but she didn't think they should see each other anymore. Shawn had demanded why and she'd hung up on him. And he'd realized she was never coming back. He hadn't told Cory.

So this morning when he'd woken up with Cory's arms wrapped around him, Cory's breath slow and warm on his neck and realized that it might be the last time...

He'd told Cory that he was going to ruin Topanga's life. That it would be easier to tell her now, so she could go off to New York and have a fresh start instead of him following her there. It would be easier to do before they had kids, before they bought their own place. Before he changed his entire life for her. His parents would be fine, Eric might not even notice.

Cory had almost agreed until Shawn had said it.

"Just tell them you're gay." He should have known better.

Shawn had quietly dealt with "bisexual". He'd even come out to Angela. And she'd been okay with it. Other than when she'd asked about Cory, and he'd lied, things had been fine. But he should have remembered that how Cory felt about "gay".

Cory had freaked out. He'd lit into Shawn. He accused him of only trying to force him into confessing (he wouldn't say "coming out") because now he, Shawn, had nothing left to lose. And Shawn had risen to the bait.

"What do you have to lose Cory? This big nagging albatross around your neck?"

"Don't you dare talk about Topanga that way! I love her!"

"But your IN love with ME!" Shawn had yelled back, "And if you actually gave a damn about Topanga you would get a back bone and tell her the truth!"

And Cory had put on his jacket said "Get your shoes we'll be late," and walked out the door.

So Shawn was sitting in Cory's father's car in silence, upset at how the sound of Cory breathing, which was so calming, almost fulfilling when heard as a soft susurration in the mornings, was now a harsh, grating annoyance in his ears. He turned on the radio, berating himself for ripping into Cory instead of just screaming the truth "All I have to lose is you!".

Cory was just trying not to think. Trying not to think about how upset Shawn was. Trying not to think about how he wasn't sure he could actually go through with moving to New York. Trying not to think about how the comforting bottle of Shawn's cologne he'd stolen from the medicine cabinet and stashed in his jacket pocket wasn't going to be good enough.

Not thinking had gotten him through a lot of years. Before the night in the tree house, he hadn't thought about the way he felt about Shawn. He'd never thought about his relationship with Topanga. No matter how hard it got to stay with Topanga, it was always easier than being with Shawn. He knew he wasn't in love with Topanga but he cared about her. And there had been moments when he thought he might be able to love her the way he loved Shawn. And the few times he'd almost been able to admit it that maybe he couldn't... Shawn had been with Angela, and Cory couldn't take Shawn away from the only other person Shawn had loved unless he, Cory, was sure he was willing to deal with everything that would come with being able to love Shawn.

Because he knew that if he'd been willing Shawn would have left Angela in a heart beat. Before the wedding he had convinced himself that the honeymoon would make him love Topanga the way he loved Shawn. But it hadn't. Two days after Cory and Topanga had come back from their honey-moon he and Shawn had skipped their morning classes to take Shawn's rust heap station wagon to the most abandoned area they could find.

And now everything that had kept them apart this long was gone. Chet had abandoned Shawn for good this time. Angela had run off to Europe, and Cory thought that was also most likely for good. Jack was in Nigeria, maybe not for good but for a couple years. Everything Shawn had been afraid of was gone, but Cory was still tied to Topanga. And for better or worse he had to move to New York.

Things had gone to far, and there was no turning back now.

Topanga's hands were clenched around the steering wheel of the van the Matthews had lent her to take her and Cory's stuff to New York. She had the radio blasting the oldies station and was singing along to the songs her father used to play her when she was little like "I'm A Believer" or "Last Train to Clarksville" and trying to stop thinking about last night.

But she couldn't. No matter how hard she clenched the wheel, how loud she turned up the radio, how loud she sang, she couldn't stop the images of Stewart laughing at her stories in the coffee bar, of him smiling at her when he offered to wait for a cab with her, the way she'd felt when he touched her. Every detail about last night was flooding her mind. And the more she replayed last night the harder it was getting to replace it with the memories she was trying to suppress it with.

She'd been trying for the last 2 hours of the drive to remember falling in love with Cory.

At first she'd been sure it would just come with her, but then she had to start figuring out a time frame.

"It had to be after I kissed him for the first time but before I proposed"

"It had to be after the whole Lauren thing, but before graduation"

"It had to have been before we were married!"

But she couldn't think of anything. She was starting to panic. If she and Cory weren't meant to be together then she had missed out on junior high, high school and half of college for no reason. Her formative years would have been thrown away completely. They would have been meaningless.

If she wasn't in love with Cory she wasn't anything.

But she couldn't remember and she began to think about last night again. She had spent a couple hours with Stewart before sleeping with him. She had put off sleeping with Cory for... a long amount of years, she couldn't actually remember how long. And even when it had finally happened it hadn't been like that. She really wanted to believe was that it was just because Stewart was good...okay, amazing in bed and that it didn't mean anything about her relationship with Cory. But that idea was not standing up against the wave of uncertainty about her marriage. They'd just always been together. As friends, and girlfriend and boyfriend, fiancés and finally husband and wife.

Topanga gave up. Her throat was hoarse and her ears and hands hurt. She stopped singing, turned off the radio and loosened her grip on the steering wheel, flexing her stiff fingers.

She had to talk to Cory about this. If she was going to take him away from his home and family, and if he was going to come with her into the next stage of her life, she had to be sure they actually belonged together.

Before this went any farther.

"I thought love was only true in fairy tales, meant for someone else but not for me!" Eric sang along to the radio on his way back from Boston. He had slept pretty well last night all things considered.

So what if his only friend had gotten the girl he was still in a little in love with and they had flown off to Africa to make the world a better place leaving him in Philadelphia basically alone?

So what if he was now, miraculously, a college graduate with no idea where he was going or what he was going to do?

So what if he didn't really want to be a weather man anymore, but still told people that because at least it was something to say?

"Then I saw her face! Now I'm a believer!"

Things would be fine. He had his father's store to fall back on. If he and Shawn found another roommate he would still have a place he could afford. Something would come to him. He'd find a job or a calling or a girl or something.

People thought he was crazy, but it was just a fierce optimism. You had to be upbeat to counteract all of the angst in his family. Look at Cory and Topanga, break up, get back together, break up, get back together. Or Shawn, I have parents, I don't' have parents, I have a legal guardian, I don't have a legal guardian (Eric briefly wondered what had happened to Mr. Turner) I'm in love with Angela, I'm not in love with Angela. Who needed it?

"I'm a believer, I couldn't leave her if I tried!"

Singing happily Eric pulled into the Matthew's driveway ready to say good bye to his little sister and brother in law and maybe try to stay in his and Cory's old room so he didn't have to hear Shawn crying all night.

"I'm a believer yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!"