An AU where Lucy and Wyatt moved to LA after college. Lucy answers Wyatt's Craigslist ad looking for a housemate and they make an odd couple: Wyatt making a living working on cars, Lucy writing fiction in her spare time and searching for a job. They get along like cats and dogs, but Lucy feels this strong attraction to Wyatt, and starts writing a romance novel to dispel the feelings. Inspired by Matt's turn on 90210 and the Liam/Annie romance.

Happy Birthday, Elodie!

Lucy set her cruise control for 75, cranked up the radio until it blared and settled in for a long ride full of winding roads and self recriminations. She had nowhere to go home to now. The argument with her mother still rang in her ears.

"Lucy, you're throwing your life away! I didn't raise you to see you fritter away your talents." Carol was dumbfounded and outraged. She waved the acceptance letter from the literary magazine that Lucy had handed her in the air, crumpling it slightly.

Lucy snatched the letter back from her mother's hand. "And what talent is that mom? The one you forced on me? Instead of letting me experience what I like or do what I want?" Lucy flattened out the paper and folded it neatly in thirds. This was the one thing she had been able to accomplish on her own and her mother treated it like garbage.

Carol took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She had to make her daughter see reason. "Lucy, I've had to struggle for everything I've given you. Life is hard for a single mother. You've been blessed with intelligence and beauty, and all the advantages I could scrabble together to help send you on your way. You can be a somebody in this world without having to fight for it as hard as I did." Lucy's face was set. Carol could feel her daughter's resistance. Her own temper broke through again. "I just don't understand how you can't see that!"

Lucy spoke heatedly in return, "No, you CAN'T see that I want to choose for myself. I want the life I decide to have. This is my life, not yours. My choices will impact my life and only mine."

"Lucy, in so many ways you're still just a child. Of course your choices affect everyone around you. Adults don't get to 'just do what they want,' if that had been my attitude, we would be nowhere, trust me. Now listen to me and forget all about this writing nonsense."

"Nonsense?" Lucy's eyebrows raised in offense and disbelief. "I can't believe I'm hearing this. I'm leaving whether you like it or not."

"Leaving? Where would you go? Lucy, don't be foolish!"

Lucy's chin came up. "Away. Far away from this life you chose for me. I'm going to decide my own future and you can't stop me."

Carol sighed and shook her head slightly. "Lucy, be reasonable. You've got debts to pay, and no job. This little magazine may have accepted your story, but that won't pay the bills. You don't know how hard it is to live on your own. Stay here with me, get yourself established, and we can enroll you in grad school for the fall." Carol stepped close to her daughter and put her hand on her head, brushing her hair gently. "You won't have to pay rent, you can get a job at my office. We need a clerk and it will let you get to know the professors in my department." Carol's hand landed on Lucy's shoulder encouragingly. "They'll see how intelligent you are and it will open doors. You can write in your spare time if you want, honey, but don't let it get in the way of a real career."

Lucy realized her mother could go on like this all night. She just wasn't listening. She realized the only thing her mother would understand was action. She shook off her mother's hand and went to her room.

Carol followed her, continuing to talk. Lucy listened carelessly, recognizing the vision for her life that her Mother had marked out for her for so long. When she was a girl, she had idolized her mother. Wanted to be just like her. She'd excelled at class. Gone for high honors in high school, and took advanced courses in college.

Each A+ she thought would be the culmination that her mother was looking for. Each in-depth project, she hoped would satisfy her mother's craving for Lucy's accomplishments. She spent a summer working with migrant workers, tracking their stories of travel across distant miles, the stories of their parents and great-grandparents. She spent a semester tracing the lineage of the first woman who held office in San Francisco. The networks she had been part of, the community that shaped and made her life possible.

Her mother applauded her efforts, then tore her papers to shreds. More sources, more details, more insights to be squeezed out of this work. It was exhausting. It was never enough. She was never enough.

Her only release had been her writing. Her own creative imagination that let her go where ever she wanted to go. Be whatever she wanted to be. She never let her mother read her work. It was precious, private.

The life her mother wanted her to lead was hard, exhausting, ambitious..and also safe. Lucy craved the freedom of her heart, to explore the world and break out of the bounds of academia. To be able to taste life, despite its dangers.

But of course, her mother was right in one thing. Lucy had never been on her own before. Everything looked exciting, and dangerous to her now.

Seeing blue lights in the distance she hit her gas pedal, letting the car coast back down to the speed limit. Her pulse pounded with adrenaline waiting for the police to pick her off for speeding. But someone else had been stopped by the police and Lucy glided by unnoticed. She sped down route 101, knowing she needed to take one of the side routes soon that would take her to Route 5, the safe speedy way to San Diego. But her heart kept pushing her to head towards the sea and Route 1.

The exit signs announced her choice. She had to make up her mind. Lucy hesitated. She had never driven such challenging road ways. The slow, narrow road way of Route 1 crossed towering cliffs with breathtaking views of the ocean. Its primordial forests had captured her imagination and heart as a child. But after taking that route once, her mother studiously avoided it. They took the safe roads. The quiet boring roads.

Lucy was done with all that. She made her choice. To the sea.