When Alan had arrived back home with Cory, Topanga, and a strangely-happy Eric in tow, Amy and Morgan were in the kitchen to welcome them back, along with the scent of a recently cooked breakfast.

"Good morning." Amy greeted, a hint of nervousness seeping through her cherry tone as she moved from the sink to the back door. "How'd everything go?"

"Great!" Eric chimed before either of the other Matthews boys or Topanga could respond.

"Feeny said I did a great job tutoring." Eric reported.

"Really?" Amy asked in genuine surprise.

"Yeah, well the kid I tutored only got a C on the big test, but look at this!" the high school senior commanded as he quickly unzipped his backpack and held out a paper.

Amy, beyond curious, took the paper from her eldest son and examined it. Her eyes quickly widened. "You got an A on your final?" she gasped.

"That's right!" Eric exclaimed. "Apparently, looking at the material before the exam and trying to teach it to someone else is actually a pretty great way to prepare for one. Or something..." he trailed off, unsure of what exactly the Feeny-Lesson-of-the-Week was this time.

"You were played by Feeny." Morgan stated with a hint of mock-disgust as she discretely took a sip of her orange juice.

"I wasn't 'played by Feeny', Weasel." Eric mimicked as he walked over to his younger sister and messed up the young girl's bed-head even further, much to her annoyance.

With a fond shake of her head, Amy turned away from her oldest and her youngest and turned to face the remaining of her family. She walked up closer to her husband and in a low voice - though not due to secrecy but nervousness over the answer - she asked "How did everything go?"

Alan gave a weary sigh, looking visibly tense. Before he could answer his wife's question, Cory gave a huff, walked over to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair and sat down, so that he was now sitting directly in front of the kitchen phone. Topanga, instead of being exasperated over Cory's melodramatic attitude, simply walked over to the kitchen table and took a seat in one of the chairs as well. She chose to take an actual seat at the table, but she was still within reach of Cory and the phone.

At her confused look, Alan gestured with a jerk of his head to the back door, beckoning his wife to follow him outside. As the two closed the door behind them leaving the occupied children to their own devices, the husband and wife duo were not surprised to find George Feeny attending to his garden.

"Good morning, Amy. Alan." he greeted, with a pull of a weed.

"Hi, George." Alan returned for both he and his wife.

"Thank you for helping Eric with his final. We really appreciate all you do for the kids." Amy thanked with sincerity.

"Of course." George sniffed, as if he were trying to act modest.

Amy, quiet nervous as to continue her conversation with Alan, instead commented, "The garden is coming in lovely this year. I'm amazed that you find the time to take care of it." she smiled while letting out a small huff at her own gardening incompetence.

"Oh, there's not much to it. Most species can do quiet well on their own without outside help." George answered, placing his hands in his suit jacket pockets and observing the flowers below. "Yes, some can even thrive, but they can not go forever without interaction of an outside force. With a little sun, water, and a safe place to stay, they can grow to their greatest potential."

Amy and Alan shared a knowing glance before facing the school teacher once more. "You're not talking about flowers anymore now, are you, George?" Alan asked with a bit of a sarcastic undertone.

"No, I'm not." the older man simply answered bluntly. "Eric informed me that the trouble involving Mr. Hunter late last night continued on into this morning."

"Yeah." Alan confirmed, trying to appear calm but his tenseness betrayed him. "Cory and Topanga went after Chet after Shawn got caught. They saw him skip town, a woman in tow."

Amy placed a comforting hand on her husband's shoulder as he seethed and George garnered his own look of shock and anger. "A woman?"

"Cory's not sure if it was Verna or not." Amy continued, repeating what her husband told her late last night when he returned to bed. "He's only seen the woman so few times…"

"I see…" George hummed, squinting intently at something that only he appeared able to see; a thought, perhaps. "And what does Jonathan know of this?"

"Everything." Alan answered. "I went over there with Cory this morning. I told Jonathan and Cory went to tell Shawn but it turns out Topanga beat him to it."

"Smart girl." George commented, as if to himself, knowing how harshly Cory took to sharing difficult subjects with his friends. "How did Shawn take all of this?" he inquired.

"From what Cory says, pretty well. He was understandably upset, but Cory thinks Shawn's had his suspicions about Chet for a while now." Alan shared a look with his wife. "I think we all have." Amy gave a solemn nod.

Suddenly, the phone from in the kitchen rang, interrupting the shared silence between the adults.

"I got it!" Cory called from inside the kitchen, abruptly standing up and grabbing the phone from the receiver, almost trampling his girlfriend in the process. "Hello? Shawn?" at this, the ears of Topanga and Eric perked up a bit while Morgan seemed confused as to what the big deal was.

"Is it Shawn?" Topanga inquired in a hushed tone.

Cory gave a jerky nod but didn't say anything, appearing to be listening intently to the person on the other end of the phone. "Uh-huh." Cory spoke up, as if he were answering both Topanga and Shawn at the same time. "Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, yeah I know. No, no it's okay."

"Oh, c'mon!" Eric whined from his seat at the other end of the table. "Normally they speak to each other in paragraphs but now when we all wanna know what's going on…" he trailed off purposefully.

Cory shot him a dirty look but didn't leave the room, seeing as this wasn't the cordless phone. Topanga would normally agree with Cory about respecting others' privacy but she couldn't deny that she herself was very curious to hear whatever news Shawn had to share.

"No, no. Yeah, I get it. No, man. I do. It's fine." Cory continued, sounding as if he were being reassuring. "Wait. What?" he said, again gaining the attention of the other occupants of the room due to his genuinely surprised tone. "He did? Really? H-How do you feel about that?" he added, seeming to have chosen his words very carefully.

The nervous look that Cory had worn throughout the conversion suddenly morphed into a huge grin. "That's great, Shawn!"

Eric turned to Topanga. "So good news then?" he pondered in a quiet tone. Topanga replied non-verbally with a raise of her eyebrows and shrug of her shoulders, agreeing to the notion yet just as unsure. By all outward appearances, it would seem that Cory was receiving good news, but what good that could've arose from such a situation escaped the other teens.

Cory listened to the muffled noise on the other end of the line, nodding his head and making soft hums of approval or interest at whatever Shawn was saying. Cory finally casted a glance over to Eric and Topanga who were suspiciously frozen in place once his eyes landed on them. Cory evidently caught them in the process of having a sneaky conversation, as Topanga had thrown the hair on one side of her head over her shoulder so her ear was free to listen to whatever statement that Eric's open mouth was in the middle of making.

Ignoring their deer-in-the-headlights expressions, Cory asked instead; "Hey, whaddya say about inviting a few more to this brunch outing? It's a cause to celebrate." Cory listened once more and his grin then became huge. "Awesome!" he looked to Topanga and Eric once more, then turned his body away and spoke in a hushed tone. Topanga and Eric had to scoot a bit closer and strain their ears to hear. "Want me to tell everyone for you? I know you don't like making a big deal about things like this...Okay. Yeah, yeah. No problem, buddy."

Cory seemed to be done on the phone and went to hang it up before pausing and bringing the device back to his ear. "Shawn?" he paused once more for a response on the other end of the line, making sure his friend didn't hang up yet. "I'm happy for you." he smiled into the phone.

Topanga and Eric shared another look. Though their amount of worry was low, their curiosity-levels were at an all time high. With a final goodbye, Cory hung up the phone only to be met with the demanding looks of his girlfriend and brother.

"Well?" Eric asked brusquely. "What's going on?"

"You'll see. Just tell mom and dad that we're all going out to eat together." Cory looked to the backyard a gave a surprised look that meant he wasn't really surprised at all. "Invite Feeny too." he ordered, with a jerk of his head to the man in the backyard currently speaking with his parents.

Eric gave a scowl at being told what to do but did it nevertheless, rising from his seat and heading to the back door. "We better be going somewhere with pancakes." he insisted. "24/7." he added, as an afterthought before heading into the backyard.

"But I just had pancakes..." Morgan moaned as she dropped out of her seat and followed her older brother out the door.

"Sorry we all can't have iyour/i problems, Weasel." Eric drawled as the two finally left the room.

Cory turned away from his siblings to see Topanga giving him her widest doe-eyes and an alluring smile. The teen boy frowned. "I'm not telling you what it is."

Topanga's smile dropped into a glower and Cory gave a good-natured laugh at the quick change. The blonde walked over to her boyfriend and wrapped her arms around his neck in an embrace, not able to stave off the smile that wormed it's way onto her lips from Cory's contagious good attitude.

"I take it all went well?" she finally settled for asking. If her boyfriend wanted to be aloof, then fine.

"Oh, I don't know." Cory said, diverting his eyes but returning the embrace.

Topanga raised her eyebrow. "Good news?" she tried again, her tone holding a bit of force.

Cory shook his head in fond exasperation. "The best." he finally revealed.

The teenage girl smiled. "Good." she stated. She may not have all the answers, but they'd be revealed to her soon. Besides, if Cory was happy, it meant Shawn was happy. Or at least on his way to be. Afterall, Cory could never smile as easily as the way he was now if his friends weren't happy.

Especially his Shawn.

Thank you for reading. Reviews are deeply appreciated!