I only recently got back into this fandom, and was so amazed that with the number of fans that Kids Incorporated had back in the day, that there are so few fanfictions written about them. And this coupling was the most pronounced on the show (even if it was never acknowledged). Of course, there are the shippers that prefer Stacy/Rhasaan, but this is the couple I like. This story takes place in August 2000, and in this AU, the band dissolved after Ryan left, so there wasn't anything after Season 5.

Disclaimer: I do not own Kids Incorporated. If I did, it wouldn't have ended.

How Will I know?

Whyteroze28

Chapter 4

Even though it was August, the evening air felt good, warm enough for shorts but not too warm. She glanced around as she stepped out, and saw him pulling out his car keys.

"Ryan?"

He glanced up, and dropped the keys, startled. "Oh, hey."

"Where are you going?"

"I figured I'd make it an early night. You know." He shrugged, and bent down quickly to pick up the keys. His shoulders turned inward, and she suddenly knew why he was leaving.

"Ryan?" He stood up, looking at her, and she paused for a moment at the guarded expression on his face. "Ryan, do you remember the day we first met?"

He nodded slowly, a small smile on his face. "The day I tried to force my way into the band."

"Yeah, and almost alienated yourself from all of us. But that wasn't what I meant. I remember how fascinated I was by your appearance. You were the most amazing person I'd ever met." She let her mind wander for a moment, remembering just how occupied she'd been, touching his leather jacket, and his spiky hair. Then she blushed, and glanced down at her feet.

"But then," she went on, hurriedly, "I got to know you, and I realized that it was all an act. You weren't trying to be cool... unless it was when there was someone around that you were trying to impress. "You just were."

She looked at his face again, and caught a strange, contemplative look. "And then, when I was twelve, we held that Sadie Hawkins' Day dance at The P*lace, remember?"

"Yeah, you were so nervous, because you wanted to ask that... Jason, wasn't it?" he asked. She wondered if she was just imagining the growl she heard as the name slipped out.

Stacy shook her head, and took a deep breath. "No, I was nervous because I was trying to find a date that Renee would approve of... and because my first choice, someone she wouldn't have approved of, had already been asked."

His eyes narrowed. "Oh, really?"

She locked eyes with him. "Yeah, the crush was already there, I just learned to keep it hidden. I didn't want to deal with the overprotective speeches I'd get... Plus there was the fact that everyone treated me like a kid sister. So I just kept ignoring the way I felt, and eventually, it went away... or at least, I thought it had."

"I mean, during that last year, everything was getting so overwhelming at times, that I probably wouldn't have noticed if The P*lace had caught on fire. Or if I had, it would have taken some pretty big flames to catch my attention." She tried to smile, but it felt more like a grimace to her. "And then the band broke up, and it just all sort of faded, like most memories do."

"So, what changed?" he asked, quietly.

"I saw some of the old videos that Riley had recorded, when we were all performing, and I noticed some things that I hadn't before."

"Such as?" His voice was neutral, not giving away anything.

"Such as the fact that even though a lot of our songs weren't supposed to be romantic, I saw that I was getting some damned funny looks from someone I had forced myself to think of as a big brother." Then she sighed, looking down again. "And over the past few weeks I've spent all my time agonizing over whether or not it would have been better to have noticed this then... or to have not noticed it at all."

His voice came closer, and she looked back up to see him walking towards her. "And have you decided anything?"

She smiled up at him. "Yeah. I've decided that I'm not going to let anyone else's opinions matter when it comes to who I like. I've decided that it doesn't really matter what I didn't notice then, because the past is the past. And," she added as she saw his face fall, "I've decided to be a little bit selfish, and hope that the song you just sang was for me, as much as the song I sang was for you."

He stared at her for a second, confused. "But, I thought you just said..."

"Yeah, the past is past. But this is now. And I'm not looking at the Ryan I had a crush on. I'm looking at the man he grew into. The one I'd like to take a chance and get to know. And I know I'm not the Stacy you fell for either. But even though we've both changed some, it doesn't mean that we're completely different. Just that there are new things we need to learn about each other."

He held out his arms, and she leaned into the embrace. It was almost like the ones she remembered, except now she knew the emotion behind them wasn't friendship. Then she heard him murmuring in her ear. "I wrote that song during Richie's Presidential campaign. I kept trying to find the right time to sing it for you, but... there never seemed to be a right time. And then I heard you singing today, and I figured it was now or never."

"Up until I heard it, I still wasn't completely sure whether the things I was seeing on the video were real, or my own imagination," she said, looking up at him. "And then for a moment, when you were singing, I thought 'This has to be a dream'. But then I saw you leaving, and I just knew that if I let you leave again, that I wouldn't get another chance."

He smiled down at her, and then leaned forward. She closed her eyes, and a small shiver of anticipation ran down her spine. Then his lips touched hers, and she realized that was so much better than she had dreamed it would be. As they kissed, she let her mind roam back through the past... just for a moment. Just long enough to truly understand that this was so much better than she could have ever hoped it would be.

Then he broke away, and stared down at her again. "I think they're still singing," he laughed.

She glanced back at the doors of The P*lace, and giggled. "Yeah, Renee decided earlier to let everyone sing as long as they wanted... As long as Mickey didn't mind."

"What do you think?" he asked, taking her hand, and leading her back towards the doors. "Do you want to sing one more, for old time's sake?"

As they moved to open the doors, she smiled at him. "What about... 'Cherry Bomb'? It was a fan favorite."

When I think back about those days

All I can do is sit and smile