A/N: Here it is, guys! The last chapter. That I planned. I swear to God, if I have to write another, I will do worse than I do here, okay? Okay.

Summary: He marries the girl he loves but it all goes to shit. / He really thought they'd be fine. He thought they could do it. He thought she didn't love Maya the way Maya loves her. He thought everything would be great.

i. you're 29 and she's 28

It's cold and not just because half of his ass hangs out of this stupid hospital gown. Riley Friar doesn't hold his hand tight as she can and she doesn't cry warm tears on his chest. There have been months to get used to this and accept that cancer is killing him but he had hoped for at least sniffling on his death bed.

"I'm sorry we couldn't have kids," he whispers, not looking at her. It occurs to him that he'll miss her birthday again.

She doesn't say anything for a minute. Her throat doesn't clear itself and she doesn't creak in that chair. "I don't need kids at 28, Lucas." He imagines she's twisting the ring on her finger and tries to not think she's taking it off.

"Ri, it's just ... I know you want them and I do—did too," the truth is suffocating but he says it anyways.

Her lips are cold at his cheek but he welcomes them anyways. She's thinking about her best friend and he has to be okay with that. Too much has changed for him not to be.

If it's out of love or pity, he doesn't know, but she stays at his side and twists their fingers together. It's the most affection they've shared in he doesn't know how long but that doesn't matter if it's the last. He had wanted the last to be a kiss to last for the next ten minutes, or the next ten lifetimes, or forever if that's how he died—with her lips on his.

They haven't kissed like that in awhile.

"Riley?" It's soft and scared but so is he.

She rests her head onto his chest in reply.

"Kiss me, one last time?"

Her head shakes and it feels like needles in his lungs. "Not the last time," she whispers. When was the last time then? A peck before cancer? Fierce lips in a fight? With another's taste mixed in their mouths?

They fell apart too fast to fix it.

"Ring power?" He pleads.

She sobs but not for him on his fucking death bed. "I love you," she tells him. It's his and his alone this time but he knows things are different now.

"I love you," he cradles her, "I loved you so hard, God, Riley Matthews, I loved you so much."

(It's too late to tell her to be Mrs. Riley Hart.)

ii. you're both 28

She waited up in his head. (She went out with Maya in reality.) She left a sweet note with a heart in his head. (She left an ice cold plate of chicken and mashed potatoes in reality.) She fell asleep on the couch in his flannel in his head. (She's laughing with her best friend in reality.)

He wants them to be perfect again. He wants to come home on time again. Fuck. Why does he have to work all day?

The dinner plate is in the microwave, spinning and glowing, when he finds it. Her wedding ring is on the coffee table. Suddenly, his appetite is ruined and the dinner, plate and all, is in the trash. Cancer couldn't kill him fast enough.

"Why? Fuck, Riley, why?" He knows exactly why. Everything has gone wrong and she loves someone else.

They could've worked out in another life and in different careers.

He cries himself to sleep on the couch and all she offers him is a blanket before curling up in their bed.

iii. you're 28 and she's 27

"Oh." It's all she says when he tells her he has cancer. She cries later but all she can say is "oh." Five years married and that's the best she can give him now.

They cry together anyways, arms wrapped around each other like they're seventeen again.

No one else says oh. His parents cry and hers hold him tight. Farkle clings on and won't let go because he can't lose his best friend, it's not an option. Maya hits him and dives into his chest, sobbing an angry fit of snot and hate. Zay drops everything and drives back from Texas without a word until he's right there, hugging his best friend in the world.

The best Riley can do is look down at her feet and feel bad for not feeling bad enough.

"Do you love me?" He hangs his heart from his sleeve. She nods slowly, not breaking eye contact. They don't look at each other like that is the world and nothing else could be anymore.

It would mean more if her friendship ring didn't cut into his hand.

(Maya holds Riley to her chest without need but that never matters anymore.)

iv. you're 27 and she's 26

He was drunk or sober but there's lipstick on his chest and two warm bodies in a new bed. It's horrifying to see blonde curls and dark eyebrows under the sheet because he knows who that is. She looks like an angel but he knows she's the devil (or maybe he is now) and she's ruining his marriage without even trying.

"Wake up, get up, Hart, look what we've done," he begs, shaking her.

She stirs and her eyelids are too droopy for her to scream. There's a painful familiarity to the way she rubs her forehead. For a moment, he thinks she will call Riley. Instead she pukes off the side of her own bed.

He doesn't want Riley to know. After what happened, he can't have Riley know. Rubbing her back gently, he whispers quieter than he ever has, "nobody needs to know ... We did this. Nobody would understand—I don't understand."

There's a moment where he thinks she will nod and agree. It's delusion, more than anything. "Get out," she tells him. "Get the fuck out."

She tells Riley because she loves her.

"You slept with my best friend! She was drunk and you slept with her! After what happened to us, you—you think you can just run away to Maya!?" Lucas doesn't move from the doorway. She's screaming and red and angry.

He did this.

He did this.

Why did he do this?

"I ... I'm so sorry, Riley, I love you, I don't know what—" his voice is breaking. Does he deserve to be this sad?

She throws a picture frame to the floor. Ivory dress, black tie, grey vest. They're hands and lips and love in it and now they're broken. He can remember everything that happened that day. He spun her and kissed her and loved her like they used to in their kitchen in that tiny apartment. It's a night he's written about again and again, trying to find the story to tell with it, but it always ends in her dancing with her best friend and not him.

Now she's broken it like he's broken them.

"That's bullshit, Lucas! You know what happened! You slept with her!" Her eyes shouldn't be hurting this much over him.

(What kind of a husband is he?)

He's quiet because she won't let him be anything but while she screams. It's not just sleeping with her best friend. It's missing her birthday for his career and the women who want him to read their manuscript. It's coming home late for an entire month. It's choosing to work overtime. It's drinking too much. It's everything wrong with them.

With him.

"Riley—Riles, you're acting crazy, I—" it's the wrong thing to say and he realizes that after it falls from his lips.

"No, I'm not! I'm not! Goddamnit!" She's crying now. She won't take his arms around her or his lips upon hers and he knows why. She wants blonde hair and blue eyes, not him. He shouldn't have lied. Why the fuck did he lie?

(Is he trying to ruin his own marriage?)

He watches her cry because he can do nothing now.

v. you're 26 and she's 25

Their hands are linked throughout the ultrasound with matching smiles on their lips. "We're going to have a child," he laughs, kissing her forehead.

"I know. Maya and Zay will be the godparents, and you'll pick the middle name, and Daddy will be so happy for us, and everything will be okay," she whispers, holding his face, "I want to remember this moment forever."

He presses his forehead against hers and tells her she will. That nothing could be more perfect than this. This moment is theirs, forever and forever, until the world burns up around them.

Lucas is wrong.

"Hang on," Dr. Hiatt whispers, "I have to check this little one's heartbeat and then we're done."

(Riley wishes so much that Dr. Hiatt never checked the heartbeat.)

It's a moment. It is fleeting and gone as quick as it comes. It is the worst moment of his life. It is the worst moment of her life.

"I .. I'm sorry," she whispers, "Mrs. Friar ... You're child is—is dead."

Neither of them scream. Neither of them cry. They are silent. "What?" He can see Riley's world shatter around her, hear her heart stop, like their child's.

"Mrs. Friar, I ... There's nothing I can do. I—their ... Their heart stopped beating." This wasn't supposed to happen. Not to them. Not to their first child. They'd bought the new house, they'd looked at cribs, they'd announced it to everyone.

Fuck.

He wanted to give piggyback rides, wanted to go to Disney World as a family, wanted to film firsts, wanted to tie little shoelaces, wanted to help pick out backpacks, wanted to help with homework, wanted to make shitty jokes, wanted to embarrass their child together, wanted to make photo albums with her at 2 am, wanted to have to pretend Santa is real, wanted to get homemade father's day presents, wanted to have fourth of July barbecues, wanted to step on Legos, wanted to complain about their friends, wanted to be a family. He wanted it so fucking badly.

They walk home in the sun without touching each other once.

(She and Maya are inseparable again the next time you all have lunch.)

vi. you're both 25

Lucas slips into their tiny apartment with a flower he picked from someone else's garden as sorry for being late to get home. It's not what he expected.

She's sitting in the living room with their closest friends and a smile on all mouths. Her hand is in Maya's and he almost cringes but it's fine, they're fine.

"What's the occasion, Ri? Did you get the job?" He grins, setting the flower in their vase.

Her arms wrap around her stomach and she smiles wider than he's seen since he proposed (she's smiled wider for Maya before but he's fine, they're fine). "I'm going to bear your child," she tells him.

He feels his mouth drop open only after Zay laughs that he'll swallow bugs and Maya snorts that bugs want nothing to do with his mouth. He's going to be a father. He's going to be a father. "I swear to you, Riley Friar, I will be the best father I can to our child," he whispers, kissing her both her hands.

Lucas knows Maya is dying inside but he's never been happier.

"Congrats, Mr. Riley Matthews." A pained eye roll pretends to be what she's feeling. It's never been easier to read the blonde.

"Why were you so late home anyways, Luke?" Farkle asks him.

"I had to finish up a few chapters if we wanna move out of this tiny apartment. And now that we have a little one on the way, we definitely need to." He smiles at Riley and she smiles back and they're okay, they're fine. Except the hand in hers.

(A part of him wishes Farkle and Zay knew about the longing glances and the hushed feelings because he needs someone to cut through this pain at brown seeing blue as the world.)

vii. you're 24 and she's 23

So maybe they can barely afford their home but at least they have each other. They have slow dancing in the kitchen and telling stories over TV dinner and her sleeping in his flannels. He knows they can pull through this, she'll stop loving Maya in time and they'll figure out their finances and they're going to be okay.

They're too in love to not be okay.

Except Riley just lost her job and he needs to get published soon if they want to keep their tiny apartment. He wishes he had stayed with his original major or that she had gotten a job at a better school. But everything is going to be okay because they're Riley and Lucas and they're golden.

He's right and he gets the call as they're eating dinner. He's going to be published and he's going to finally make money.

Everything is wrong but everything is finally right.

They dance in the kitchen and she steps on his toes to be taller than him. He knows who she wants him to be but it's okay because she swears she loves him. He believes her.

She wouldn't lie to him.

viii. you're almost 24 and she's still 23

Bills are worse than he'd expected for them. Neither of their jobs are any good for this city and he's worried they'll need to move away from their best friends.

They can figure this out.

("I believe in us," she tells him between kisses.)

If anyone can stay strong, it's them.

("We'll come out stronger," he murmurs between her collar bones.)

The bills stack up and the pay doesn't.

("You'll get published soon," she swears to his shoulders.)

No school will take her full time.

("You're going to find a good school," he promises into her hair.)

There's a tapping at their window and their moment is dead as a dark eyebrow is cocked at them. Shit.

viv. you're both 23

He's heard before that your wedding is the most magical part of your marriage. So far, it has been. He could almost swear it was a fairy tale. From the fizzling in his lips when they kissed to the way her dress spun out when he twirled her, he couldn't make it more of a fairy tale.

At least, not until he hears his mother-in-law's voice.

Riley asks her what love feels like—doesn't she know? Aren't they in love? He just married her, she must know what love feels like. They must feel like love, love must be something in the way they kiss and dance and look at each other.

"It feels hopeless."

"Oh."

He wonders if maybe they're hopeless. (Could they be hopeless?)

Topanga leaves with sad eyes to Angela and Cory and Shawn and Katy. He watches for a minute, all the while not wanting to breathe. There's a quiet sort of anger in his bones.

Then, he hears a sob. No. No. No. Riley wouldn't cry on their wedding night. Riley loves him. Riley has loved him for so long. They will not fall. They will not lose, not this early into their marriage.

She mumbles something.

"Maya."

She loves Maya. But she must love him. She must love him. At least a little. She married him, she said yes. He had Maya's blessing, he had her father's blessing, he had her mother's blessing, he loves her so goddamn much. She must love him.

How could she not love him?

No. It will be fine. They will be fine. She will not love Maya forever. They will be fine. She loves him too. They will be fine. He loves her so much. They will be fine. He knows they will be fine.

He knows it as he holds her tight to his chest and kisses the top of her head and he knows it as she takes him inside her to consummate the marriage with whispered words of love and tenderness.

"We will be fine."

A/N: Ring power doesn't work so well for Lucas. Also, yes, I did just kill off Lucas.