#sorry it's boring AF but I had to get them to Texas ya know???

[gilbertandanne]

Third installment to the Serendipity/Amaranthine universe. How far would you go in order to protect someone you love? WARNING: as with the first two parts in the series, there is an overall trigger warning for abuse (physical, mental, emotional). That, combined with the adult themes in this fic (alcohol, language, situations, etc), are the reason for the rating. Primarily Rucas.

Rating: M

Soundtrack (not at all in order and will be edited as the story progresses)

Word count: 3,041

Prologue | One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine |

                                                    Elysian

Chapter Five: Abeona

Abeona: Roman Goddess of Outward Journeys. Abeona’s name comes from the Latin verb abeo: “to depart, go away, or go forth”.

Two weeks later…

It was a three-hour flight, but Riley knew that it would feel so much longer than that.  She knew that Maya would fall asleep the moment they took off.  She knew that Zay would have his headphones plugged in and would probably pass out while Farkle worked on some new patent for his father’s company.  She knew she wouldn’t have anyone to talk to.  She also knew that she wouldn’t be able to concentrate long enough to justify buying a movie to watch on the way there.

Over the last two weeks, she must have talked herself in and out of going to Texas at least a dozen times.  Every day, she felt a different way.  Her head told her to stay and go to Charlie’s parole hearing.  Her heart unwaveringly protested and commanded her to get on the plane and go see her boyfriend.  Head versus heart: the eternal debate.  Every single time she considered staying in the city, she talked herself out of it, because staying meant that she had to explain everything to Lucas.  He would want to know why she couldn’t come, or why she had to cut her trip short.

Telling him was a whole other issue.  She constantly battled herself over the last two weeks with whether or not to tell him about Charlie’s parole hearing.  She knew that he deserved to know the truth.  He needed to know that there was a possibility that her ex-boyfriend could be released from prison.  Although at the same time, she knew that he was having one of the best summers in Texas with his family.  He seemed so happy to be able to work alongside his grandfather and his father.  He had spent most of his evenings playing cards with them.  He always had this incredible smile on his face whenever he told her about spending time with both of them.  She knew that if she brought Charlie up that it would all somehow disappear.  She knew that the demons of their past would come charging back at him, and he didn’t deserve that.  Charlie was her problem.  He was never Lucas’s problem.

Besides, there was nothing to tell him, so she didn’t.  She’d much rather hear about his fishing trip with his father than to have to confess that the darkest part of her past had resurfaced.

As she slid her headphones on, she glanced out at the clouds that were now below them.  In two years, she hadn’t lied to him about anything, but with every passing day, she knew a lie of omission was still a lie.  Even though she had the best intentions, she knew that she was holding back from him.  It was hard to do.  She had shared everything with him ever since they reconciled, but she knew that she was doing this for his benefit, not hers.  She would do anything to protect him and ensure his happiness—even if that meant pretending that everything was ok in New York.

Now she had the seemingly impossible assignment to go through the next week as if nothing was wrong.  She would be forced to hide from him.  July 7th would be their last full day in Texas.  She knew she wouldn’t be able to find out what happened with Charlie until she got home.  She knew she could wait a day.  She had no other choice.  It was better than potentially finding out about his release while they were there.  She knew that she would completely implode and immediately expose what she had hidden from Lucas for the last month.  She didn’t want that.  She wanted a peaceful trip.  She wanted to curl up in his arms under the stars on their hill and know that their world was still theirs.  She wasn’t about to let Charlie Gardner ruin this.

She closed her eyes as she leaned her head back against the headrest.  The last conversation she had with her boyfriend replayed through her mind.  He seemed so happy.  She wasn’t sure if she had ever seen him quite that excited.  He was completely covered in mud and looked exhausted, but as he told her about how he helped deliver six piglets, his eyes lit up in such a way that nearly took her breath away.  He seemed so happy, so free.  Gone were the demons he spent years trying to slay.  Gone was the bitterness he had toward his father.  He looked like a kid on Christmas morning.  She knew she wanted to remember that smile, so she took a screenshot of him.  That picture was now his contact picture in her phone.  She knew that Lucas was the real Lucas.

She smiled softly as she listened to her ‘Lucas’ playlist.  It was going to be a good week.

The moment they stepped off the plane, Riley promised herself that she wouldn’t think about Charlie, the parole hearing, the apartment search, or anything else that would only cause her to stress out.  They were in Texas to relax and have fun.  It was a vacation.  That meant forgetting, even if only for a week, about everything at home.

On the other hand, she knew that the more you tried not to think about something, the more you thought about it.  As they walked out of their gate, her eyes immediately fell to the ground as she desperately tried to give herself a mental pep talk.  Lucas knew her just as well as she knew him.  If she seemed the least bit concerned about something, he wouldn’t stop asking her about it until she told him what it was.  So, she had to convince herself that there was nothing to worry about.  She had written her victim’s statement—all ten pages of it—and made sure that it went through the proper channels so the parole board would read it and know that Charlie was still a danger to a society and that he deserved to stay exactly where he had been for the last three years.

Maya noticed the tenseness that seemed to radiate from Riley.  She thought that the brunette would be ok once they got to Texas, but if anything, Riley seemed even more anxious with every step she took.  “Are you ok?”

Riley took a deep breath. “Yeah,” she calmly responded as she turned to Maya.  “Why do you ask?”

“Because you were staring a hole into the floor and,” she slid the strap of her carryon bag over her shoulder, “Normally by now, you’d be halfway to the baggage claim to see him.”

Riley’s lips formed a thin line as she lowered her gaze back to the ground.  This was going to be a lot harder than she first thought.  “Yeah, I was just…waiting for you guys to catch up, you know?”

“Is something wrong,” Zay asked the girls as he and Farkle walked up to them.  “I figured Riley would be halfway to baggage claim by now.”

“Guys, I’m perfectly fine,” she assured them.  “More than fine, actually.  I just wanted to wait for you to catch up…so we could all go together.”

Farkle couldn’t help but laugh.  The group had turned their annual arrival at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport into a running joke over the last two years.  Every time they visited Lucas in Texas, Riley was always the first person off the plane.  Whenever the rest of them caught up to her, she would already have her arms wrapped around her boyfriend.  They actually debated on turning it into some sort of a bet to see who, if anyone, could spot Lucas before she did. “Since when?”

“Since now,” she answered with a slight strain in her voice.  What was the big deal?  She waited for just a moment and suddenly everyone was acting like it was the end of the world or something.

“Are you sure you’re ok?”  Zay knew that he was risking her wrath, but it was very weird for her to just stand at the gate instead of making a direct beeline toward their normal rendezvous with Lucas.  Zay wasn’t the most observant person in their group, but he had to admit that Riley had seemed pretty stressed out over the last few weeks.  

“Yes,” she decisively answered before she turned to Farkle.  “I’m sorry for snapping at you.”  He didn’t deserve that.  She knew that she seemed off.  It didn’t help that everyone else had picked up on it. If they could tell, she knew Lucas would be able to tell too.  ‘Get it together, Matthews.’

“It’s ok.”  He gave her a small smile.  He could tell that she was distracted, but he knew Riley well enough to know when to push and when to back off.  If she wanted to talk about it, he knew that she would.

She sighed.  “I’m just…tired, I guess.”

“Understandable,” Zay began as he put a reassuring arm around her shoulders.  “Changing time zones and three hours cramped on that plane is enough to make anyone a little frustrated. You’ll feel better once we get settled in.”

She nodded.  Maybe she just needed a little fresh air.  “Yeah.”

As they walked toward the baggage claim, Riley worried that her boyfriend would immediately notice what everyone else already had—that she seemed to be completely unlike herself.  ‘No,’ she quickly told herself.  He wouldn’t get the chance to pick up on that. She was an actress—and a good one at that.  She was studying acting at one of the best theatre programs in the country for crying out loud.  She could fake it, and then when she got home, she’d find out that Charlie’s request for parole was denied and she could go back to her life without worrying that Charlie Gardner would re-enter her world and destroy her life.

But for now, she needed to push him as far away from her mind as possible, because she was finally in Texas and about to be reunited with the guy she had been severely missing for nearly two months.  

She twisted the meteorite ring around her finger as the group made it to baggage claim.  She didn’t see him at their normal meeting spot at first because of the sheer amount of people that surrounded the area.  She followed the others as they went to the appropriate carousel, but paid no attention to the bags as they slid out of the tunnel as she continued to survey her surroundings.  He had to be there.  He wouldn’t forget to pick them up, would he?

As some of the crowd began to clear out, she scrutinized every single corner of the area they were in.  When her brown eyes finally met a pair of familiar green ones, all thoughts of Charlie and the stupid hearing went out of her mind.  He was there.  She was there.  They were mere feet from one another instead of thousands of miles.  A genuine smile, the first in nearly a month, immediately formed on her lips as she left her friends in a dead sprint towards her boyfriend.

Lucas’s smile matched that of his girlfriend’s when he saw her.  He quickly jogged toward her, more than ready to hold her in his arms once again.  Initially, he was afraid he was going to be late, but thankfully their plane landed about fifteen minutes late.

“Hi,” she breathlessly greeted the moment she knew that she was within earshot of him.

“Hey,” he automatically answered as he took the final ten steps toward her.

“Hi,” she repeated the moment they both stopped in front of one another.  It has been forty-nine days since she had last seen him face to face.  In that time, she had completed her theatre intensive summer class, looked at what must have been a hundred potential apartments, and found out that her abusive ex-boyfriend might be getting released from prison early.  It had been an emotionally draining forty-nine days since she could reach out and hold the safest place she had ever known.

Before she could take that last step, he had already collapsed under the weight of those forty-nine days apart.  She barely had the chance to blink before he wrapped his arms around her in a warm embrace.

She closed her eyes as she slowly exhaled.  She knew that this was exactly what she needed.  She needed his warmth and light to calm her ever growing fears that life, as she knew it, was about to completely change.

Maya must have spent the better part of the last ten minutes staring at the couple in the front seat of the truck.  Normally after picking everyone up from the airport, Riley and Lucas would talk non-stop until they reached Pappy Joe’s farm.  The way they practically cooed at one another was so vomit-inducing that she, Farkle, and Zay would end up playing rock, paper, scissors to determine who would be forced to ride with them while the other two rode in the back of the truck on the way to the farm.

On this particular occasion, the five of them had more than enough room to ride inside of the truck Lucas had driven to pick them up in.  Instead of talking everyone’s ears off like they normally did, Riley and Lucas rode in complete, practically deafening silence.  Maya quickly decided that she hated this a lot more than the nauseating declarations of who missed whom more.  The air inside of the truck felt tense, like it was the beginning of a horror movie or something.  

‘Charlie,’ she mentally groaned.  She hated that Riley refused to tell Lucas about what could happen with Charlie, but she also promised Riley that she wouldn’t say a word about it.  It wasn’t her news to give, and she wasn’t about to get in the middle of that situation with them.  She understood why Riley wanted to leave him out of it, but if it was creating this much tension between them, wouldn’t it be worth it just to get it out in the open?  It wasn’t like Riley had done anything wrong.  She couldn’t help that Charlie was up for parole.

“So,” Maya drawled out as she desperately needed to cut the silence with conversation, “Pappy Joe got a new truck?”

“Yeah,” Lucas answered as they drove further away from the city.  “He bought it a few months ago.”  He glanced at Riley before he looked back at the road.  She seemed quiet—too quiet.  He had hoped that the awkwardness of their last few conversations would fade when they saw one another.  For a moment, he thought it had, but as they drove closer and closer to the farm, Lucas realized that there had to be something on her mind.

Riley lightly drummed her fingers against the door as she felt the warm Texas air hit her face.  She tucked a piece of hair behind her hair as she turned toward her boyfriend.  “He got rid of the old one?”

Lucas couldn’t help the smirk that spread across his lips as he glanced at Riley once more.  About a hundred dreams and one very real heated exchange between them flashed through his mind at the mention of his grandfather’s old truck.  “Actually, he gave it to me.”

Riley knit her eyebrows together.  “He gave it to you?”

Lucas nodded.  “Yeah.  Sometimes we need to go to town to get certain things and instead of waiting for the other one to get back, he just gave me the old one.”  He gripped the steering wheel with his left hand as he lowered his other hand to rest on top of hers.  “He let me take his truck to the airport because he knew that it would be a tight fit with all of us and the luggage.”

Riley looked down the moment she felt his hand on top of hers.  She smiled softly as she rotated her hand and interlaced their fingers together.  When she looked back up at him, she bit the inside of her cheek.  “How are the piglets doing?”

The thousand-watt smile that she had only ever seen when he talked about helping the sow deliver her piglets immediately returned to his face.  “They’re perfect.  I can’t wait for you to see them.  I built them a little pen to keep them separated from the other pigs for now.”

Riley couldn’t help but to smile at the sheer happiness on her boyfriend’s face.  He seemed so happy, so peaceful.  There wasn’t a trace of anger or rage in him.  In that moment, he seemed so alive.  

Zay leaned forward as he looked at his best friend.  “What’s the plan for tonight?”

Lucas glanced at him briefly before he turned his attention back to the road in front of them.  “Well, I thought that maybe you guys would want to take it easy tonight.”

“I don’t know about everyone else, but I was kind of hoping to go out tonight,” Maya told him.  “I slept on the plane, and all I can think about right now is trying those margaritas that Riley got drunk off at Chubbie’s three years ago.”

Riley glared at her best friend.  “Very funny.”

Maya shrugged.  “Just a suggestion.”

“I’m with Maya,” Zay agreed.  “Chillin’ at the farm sounds cool and all, but not tonight.  We’re all here.  We’re all friends.  Let’s go have some fun tonight.”

Maya turned to her ex-boyfriend.  “What say you, Farkle?”

Farkle looked up from his phone as he grinned.  “Oh, I say ‘yes’.  I’m definitely ready to eat some more of those ribs.”

Zay laughed.  “That’s three votes.  Riley?  Lucas?”

Lucas glanced at his girlfriend.  “Up to you.”

Riley looked at her boyfriend for a long moment before she glanced at the three hopeful faces in the backseat.  “Yeah.  It’s been…a stressful summer.  I think we’re overdue for a night of fun.”

“Just a night?” Zay laughed.  “You guys are here for a week.  If I have any say in it, every night is going to be some kind of party.”