To the Moon and Back

Chapter One

A/N: I'm playing fast and loose with Canon, Season 1 and Season 2 up until New Year's happened, but certain things from before New Year's didn't, because I'm attached to the couples from Matters of the Heart, which means that while in this story Maya and Lucas aren't siblings, Maya's mother also didn't marry Shawn. (Because Shawngela is still one of my favorite couples, and I will go down with that ship)

As per usual, the first chapter is background to the story, because I can't physically rewrite all of the show without this becoming a 500,000-word monster.

Also, while I do live in NYC, I made Hamilton High up, mainly because there's three Hamilton High Schools in the city, but this one is only made up because I wanted to have a school that I didn't have to remember where it was. There's a lot of schools in this city, and I didn't want to have to pick one, so I made it up, and named it after Alexander Hamilton.

Lastly, while all of the other couples will show up from time to time in the story, this is 100% Rucas centric which means that the focus will be on them, sorry, but it's how I want to write this, also it's a secret relationship AU. So there's going to be a lot of running and hiding on their part, and I'm planning for this to be a secret for a long time in the story so be prepared.

This is partly based on the Backstreet Boys Song Chances and my Rucas Fanfic Week Day Five Fic Love among the Stars

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Riley sat at the bay window, it was the end of winter break, the last semester of senior year of high school was starting in a few days, and she couldn't help but think back to the last time she had been a senior. To the last time she had seen a boy with green eyes, who smiled at her like she held everything in the world just for him. It had been three years since, and while she wished that they had all stayed in contact, it was strange that she hadn't heard from Lucas since they graduated middle school. Zay was still in New York, he went to school with Riley and had become one of her closest friends, along with Maya, Farkle and Smackle. After the few dates she had had with Charlie they were good friends as well, Charlie realizing that Middle School had been too soon to have too much drama around them. They all needed to grow up a little more, and learn from one another, not get involved in love triangles and miss the opportunity to be friends with one another.

Yet, at the beginning of the school year, every year since that fateful day on the subway, Riley couldn't help but remember falling into Lucas's lap. To that day on the roof where her true feelings had been revealed. Only for Lucas to leave New York soon after, because his Pappy Joe had had a heart attack, and his parents went down to Texas to help the man run the ranch, Lucas going along with them. The feelings between her, him, and Maya never resolved. Well at least until that summer when Riley's Uncle Josh, moved to the city, and into her apartment, along with the rest of them. It was cheaper than having him live in the dorms, and would keep the financial burden off of her grandparents. With Josh living so close, and Maya being there almost every day, the blonde had figured out that her feelings for Lucas hadn't been real at all.

"What were they then?" Riley had asked while they had sat on the bay window in her room, thinking of all of the pain that she had gone through, and the fact that she hadn't had the chance to talk to Lucas about it afterwards.

"I don't know, I think in some way, I was afraid of whatever I have with Josh, and I sort of latched onto the idea of being with who the class had wanted me to be with," Maya said shrugging her shoulders. "I think I had been too, I don't know, vulnerable or something."

They had argued that day, and hadn't talked to each other for a week afterwards, the tension had built over time, Riley had been angry with her best friend. Too much had been lost because of what had happened that neither one had spoken to Lucas since he left because they were afraid that he would have picked the other one and broken their friendship. Josh and Maya hadn't started dating until Junior year, the tension between them boiling over into a fight that ended with Josh kissing Maya. Riley had rolled her eyes at them before walking away and thinking about what could have been with Lucas.