A few hours later, after some restless sleep, Cory woke up at 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning, which would be unheard of if he didn't have to go shatter some hearts. Well, a heart. And maybe another a skull if his brother wouldn't bother getting up.

"Cory, what's the deal?" Eric whined, finally fully sitting up in bed, hair askew and eyes half opened. "It's a Saturday...when did you even get home?" the 18 year-old asked once he realized he never saw his brother enter their room last night. A rare sight, as Cory wasn't usually such a night owl.

"A few hours ago. C'mon, Eric. I need to go. I slept too late already." Cory pressed, forcibly grabbing his brother's arm, which had gone up to rub some of the sleep from his eyes, and yanked him off his bed with all his might.

The older boy gave a comedic yell before falling to the floor at Cory's feet, blankets and all. He sat up in a fit, thoroughly confused and annoyed. "Cory, seriously! What gives?" he asked looking up at his younger brother.

"Eric," Cory started in a somber voice, which seemed to surprise his brother. Huh, Cory thought. He should really try being more serious with his family more often. It gets results. "I need to go somewhere. It's important." he continued.

Eric gave his brother a skeptic look before he started to stand up and shoved his covers back onto his bed. "Does this have anything to do with you coming home so late?"

"Yes." Cory simply answered, going through his older brother's drawers and pulling out some jeans and a shirt for him to wear. It was at this moment that Eric realized that Cory was already dressed for the day. "Dad's taking me somewhere after he drops you off. Now hurry up." he ordered, throwing the articles of clothing at the blonde.

"Alright, alright." Eric finally agreed, quickly removing his sleep shirt and replacing it with the fresh long sleeve Cory gave him and then sliding the jeans on over his boxers. "It better be important…" he started to grumble as he buttoned up his jeans and zipped up the fly.

Before Cory could respond, their father knocked twice then entered the room and observed his sons. "You boys almost ready?" he asked, in a slightly lowered tone, so as to not wake up the females in the house currently trying to sleep.

Cory nodded, grabbing a hoodie and heading out the door past his father and down the stairs into the kitchen.

"What's got his undies in a twist?" Eric asked his father once the younger boy was gone.

"He and I have some business at Turner's." he plainly stated.

"Is Hunter okay?" he asked, grabbing his backpack from his desk chair and jacket and heading towards the bedroom door.

"I don't know." Alan answered truthfully.

Jon had poured himself so many cups of coffee this morning that he's lost track of how many he's actually had. He fought a yawn as he a took a sip and tried to fight his tiredness away.

Jon was fighting a lot of things internally right now. His tiredness, his anger, his guilt. His curiosity…

He was trying his damndest not to listen to the conversation that was taking place a few doors down. By the time he was done running around all over the city trying to find Shawn, it was welled past respectable night hours. Jon didn't like spending his early morning in police stations…

He gave Shawn a talking to at the police station but once it became clear he didn't do anything wrong, Jon laid off. Well, he got in trouble for sleeping on a park bench, not anything really illegal. Besides the whole running away thing. Turns out he didn't know that his uncle took off with his trailer either. Imagine the mini-heartattack Jon felt when he first discovered that when he was looking for him`. But imagine Shawn's heartbreak to realize another family member had skipped town…

Jonathan shook the thoughts out of his head. He and Shawn had worked out some feelings the night - err... - morning before. After both sides thoroughly apologise to each other for the actions of the day before, they each made their own promises. Shawn promised no more running away without trying to talk things out first and Jonathan promised no more talks of moving, at least not right now. They had some things they still needed to work out and a big change was the last thing that any of them needed.

Jon was thinking about what will come next when there suddenly came a knock on his door. It must've been the Matthews. Alan did leave a message on his machine yesterday and mentioned he and Cory would be stopping over sometime around 8:30. Jon checked his old analog clock hanging in the kitchen area. 8:25. Good timing. Why couldn't Matthews ever be this punctual for his class?

Without wasting anymore time, Jon answered the door to his apartment to reveal a grim looking Alan and an anxious looking Cory.

"Alan." he greeted.

"Jon." the family man greeted back.

"Shawn's home right?" Cory asked a bit frantically, making his way into the apartment the second Jon gave them a gesture to come in.

"He's in his room with―" Jon started, but before he could finish Cory had already taken off at a brisk pace towards the room of his best friend. Jon stared after him, a bit shocked, before turning to the boy's father. "That's the second worried kid I've had around here this morning. Something I should know about?"

"I figured as much…" Alan sighed. "I'm afraid I don't come with good news, Jon." he cut to the chase.

"I kinda got that feeling from your message last night. What's wrong?" Jon questioned further, leading Alan to the couch and taking a seat in one of the chairs close by.

"In his stead, Cory and Topanga went looking for Shawn's father yesterday. They found Chet, but they never talked to him."

"What happened?"

"Chet was with a woman. Cory's not sure if it was Shawn's mother or not, but the two of them took off together in the opposite direction of town."

Jon was frozen in shock and pure rage. He took a breath and calmed himself. "He had no intention of coming back…" he growled out lowly.

"No. At least none that the kids could see." Alan confirmed. He breathed out his own sigh before scooting forward on the couch, lowering his voice. "Listen, Jon. I advise extreme caution from this point on. Shawn's already in a bad place emotionally. I don't know how much more the kid can take. Chet's caused that kid too much trouble already. If he really cared in the first place, he would've never filed for the guardianship papers or have taken off, almost over a year ago now." Jon nodded along in agreement. "Now, Amy and I did some talking, and if you don't feel like you can handle Shawn, she and I are willing to take him in. Permanently. Despite all the trouble that followed the first time. Chet just can keep abandoning his son and think it's okay. It's high time that something gets done about it."

"Yeah." Jon agreed, nodding his head slowly. "Yeah, it is."

Cory had gone over the possible course of the conversation about twenty times in his head and out of those twenty times, none of them ended without a crushed Shawn. In some endings he was defeated, filled with anguish. In some he was angry, aggressive, unwilling to believe. Cory didn't know which was the lesser of the two evils. It was clear that none of these scenarios ended good for his friend. But any situations his friend got into ever really?

His dad loses his job during Christmas time. A blows up a mailbox with a cherry bomb. His mom runs off, then his dad does too, claiming to go in search of his wife yet he's seen being leisurely with a woman after being arrested. He doesn't call. He sends adoption papers...Sure, Cory's grown to like the idea. Shawn being in a stable home and having a reliable adult to look after him, a proper father figure. But Cory's initial reactions were the same as Shawn's; confusion, anger, rejection. Cory wasn't sure if that last one was a reaction, but boy did he feel it. He's really gotta stop having so much empathy...

It was at this point Cory realized he was stalling. He had to accept the facts. What happened had happened and there was nothing he could do to make it unhappen. Without another thought, he took a deep breath, turned the doorknob, and opened his mouth to speak his truth but before he could, the words were trapped in his throat from the sight that greeted him.

It was pretty dim in the room, thanks to the overcast and drawn window shades, but Cory could see clear enough to notice a few things. The first was the figure of Shawn laying in his bed in a position that looked anything but comfortable, but Cory knew it to be the way his friend slept when restless. His face also was a little red and looked...damp. Damn.

The second major thing he noticed was the revelation that his friend's room was slightly cleaner than usual. There were still clothes overflowing dressers and a few discarded objects lying about here or there, but the floor was mostly clear and all the trash was gone.

And finally the third and mildly disconcerting thing that Cory noticed was his girlfriend, giving him a disapproving look with a filled trash bag at her feet.

"Topanga?" he questioned in mild shock.

"Shh." she replied.

"What're you doing here?" he whispered back instead of adhering to her request.

Apparently his tone was still too loud as the blonde female repeated "Shhhh." more forcefully, holding her finger up to her lip.

"No seriously what're you―OW." Cory hissed out after being smack hard across the arm with a rolled up sports magazine.

Just as Cory was about to speak once more and ask his angry girlfriend what was wrong, a sleep-slurred voice sounded from the bed."It's alright, Topanga. M'm awake…"

"Look what you did." Topanga finally spoke aloud with pure malice, hitting Cory repeatedly with the magazine as Shawn rubbed his eyes and sat up in bed.

"Look what I did?" Cory asked in flabbergasted surprise. "What are you doing?" he cried as he weakly tried to defend himself from his girlfriend's attack.

"I took a load off your shoulders, that's what I did." the blonde stated matter-of-factly, ending her onslaught and placing her hands on her hips in a challenging manner.

This gave Cory pause. "You mean…" he started, but trailed off. Not wanting to finish the sentence in case what he thought was happening, wasn't really happening.

"I know, Cor." Shawn finally confirmed from his slouched position, body mostly hidden by comforter. He gave the lone female a forlorn look and then stated "Topanga told me everything."

The overwhelming relief at getting the truth off his chest wasn't as sweet as Cory imagined it'd be. For starters, he wasn't the one to tell his friend the truth, which he wasn't too upset about. It was a secondhand-relief, but the horrible, guilty, empathetic feeling was still rooted there in his chest. Cory took a seat next to his best friend and asked "How 'ya feeling, buddy?"

Shawn was silent for a moment before shrugging. "Okay, I guess." he admitted at last. "I didn't wanna believe it at first, but I knew Topanga wouldn't lie to me about something like this." After he finished, he looked up to the blonde girl and gave one of the weakest smiles any of the teens had even seen. Topanga took a seat on the opposite side of Shawn and looped her arm around Shawn's in a comforting manner. He seemed to appreciate the gesture as he leaned slightly more into her touch.

"He needed to know as soon as possible, Cory." Topanga informed. "And I know it was killing you knowing you had to tell him. Almost as much as it would him to know." she finished with a nudge to Shawn's shoulder which in turn nudged Cory when Shawn allowed for the motion to follow through. They were like one of those strange desk decorations.

Ya, know? The little marbles that clanked on a string, back and forth. Cory shook his head of his strange thoughts and spoke aloud. "No, I get it." he reassured sharing a deeply appreciative look with his girlfriend before looking to his best friend once more. "We wanted to make sure we were pretty certain of what we saw before we came to you." he spoke to the other male.

"But even if it wasn't anything, we still thought we should tell you." Topanga finished for him.

"I know. You guys wouldn't blow off something like this. I get it. Really." Shawn promised. "Even if what happened…at the end, didn't happen, I'd still want to know."

There was silence for a few more minutes until Cory spoke up once more. "Do you think it was her?" he asked quietly.

Shawn gave a sigh, unlooping his arm with Topanga's and dropping down onto the bed once more, staring up at his ceiling. "I don't think it really matters." he confessed, voice sounding hollow. Soon after, Topanga joined him lying down and once more looped their arms together, giving a stronger reassuring squeeze. She wished to provide comfort in one of the only ways she knew worked for Shawn. Cory had taught her that trick. Words were never good enough for his friend. Actions spoke louder than words, after all.

"They left." Shawn breathed out. At this point, Cory had joined the two and managed to find Shawn's upper arm underneath the blankets and gave his own comforting squeeze. "The people who mattered stayed." he finished, returning the gesture to each of his best friends.

The three teens layed there in shared silence once more staring up at the ceiling, offering comfort and in turn gratitude, all without words. They all shared a promise. It was a promise they had made to each other at different times during their lives, but held much of the same meaning and value to each of them. They'd always be there for each other, no matter what they had to face once they exited the comfort of their own shared world.

They layed like this for a long time, each trying to come to terms with the reality of the situation and what it would mean for their future, until Shawn broke the silence. "Hey, guys," he started. "Why is my floor so clean?"