Title: I'll Find My Way Back to You (Wait For Me)

Summary: She shouldn't be doing this. She shouldn't be trying to ruin a soon-to-be marriage. But somehow, she is.

The night is humid and the air is warm and Riley Matthews thinks she can't fall in love with this city anymore than she already has. Her apartment is quiet, the only sounds being the whirring of the small fan that she has perched on the top of her coffee table. It's a kind of peaceful that she has grown accustomed to in the last year.

She leans back in her chair, letting her head fall backwards to stare at the ceiling, it's been a long night. She loves her job, being an editor at a publishing company is more fun than she ever expected it to be, but some manuscripts, like the one she currently is holding in her hands, are tough to get through. She's barely a quarter of the way done and she already wants to throw it over the railings on her porch. Not a good sign.

Instead, she decides to stretch her legs a bit, ambling her way to the fridge and pulling out a cream soda. The cool feel of the bottle makes her hum in content as it reaches the hot and clammy palms of her hands. In a split second decision, she decides to take a break, grabbing her phone and the soda and making her way into the hotter nighttime air. She can't complain, fresh air has a nicer, more forgiving smell than pen ink.

She realizes it's pretty late as she clicks on her phone. The screen is bright and blaring but she only winces slightly. The screen displays the time: 11:37 and she yawns instinctively. Laying the phone on her iron table she closes her eyes to rest.

Then the phone rings. Buzzing loud and fast against the metal table and relentlessly pulsing without warning. She jumps at the sound and clammers for her phone, her foot hitting the ground hard and causing splints of pain to climb up her leg. She bites her lip and looks at the number on her phone.

She can tell from the familiar area code that it's someone from New York City, specifically around where she lives, but there's no contact name to go with the number and while the last four digits look familiar, she can't place them at the moment. She answers anyway.

What follows is a flurry of words racing out against Riley's ears at a mile a minute. She barely comprehends any of them but she can tell from the pitch of the person's voice that it's a woman.

"I'm sorry," Riley interrupts, "I didn't catch any of that."

The woman at the other end of the line sighs a sigh of disapproval, or disappointment, Riley can't decide which. Riley imagines the woman brushing her hair behind her ear and rolling her eyes before answering.

"Riley, hi," the lady greets, "It's Jennifer Bassett-Minkus from Minkus International."

The brunette's eyes widen. This was a first. "Hi, Mrs.—"

"Jen, call me Jen, please."

There's a strange tone of helplessness and desperation that pulls at Riley's heart gently. She furrows her brows in concern. "Jen," she corrects, "You know you don't have to introduce yourself from the company. I remember you."

The lady is silent and Riley pictures her nodding fervently, "I know, I'm just— Oh gosh it's late, I didn't realize it was so late. Are you alright with taking this call? If not I can call you back tomorrow or—"

The panicked tone makes Riley nervous and she waves her hands in the air even though she knows the woman can't see her, "It's fine, Jen. I was working anyway." The casualty of her name feels odd on Riley's tongue and she can't help but feel uncomfortable every time she says it.

"Great, um," she pauses and there's mumbling that Riley can't decipher. "Sorry, I was just writing something down. Um, this is about Farkle."

There's a part of Riley that instantly moves her thumb to hang up the phone. She hadn't talked to boy in years. She had never meant to lose touch, it just happened. And the last time she was with him, well, they kissed while she was still dating her ex-boyfriend. She didn't exactly like to relive her infidelities.

Still, she couldn't hide the nervous tone in her voice, "Is he okay?"

"Yes, no, I— Look," the lady stutters, "He's getting married."

That's new.

"To this really nice girl and she's great. She's rich and smart and really nice."

"Send him my congrats," Riley tells the older woman and she grimaces at the tone that comes out, bitter and on edge.

"Here's the thing. Farkle's not Farkle anymore. He's changed and I think it's because of her." Riley waits for the woman to continue and tries not to blurt out something mean. "He's not happy, Riley, and I don't think he should go through with the wedding. His father doesn't think so either."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Minkus, I don't think I can help you," Riley apologizes and she attempts to weasel her way out of the conversation and hang up.

"But you can! The wedding's in a week."

"I'll send him a toaster," she argues weakly.

"I need you to talk him out of it."

"No, Mrs. Minkus—"

"Jen," the woman corrects.

"Jen, I don't think it's my place. We were friends, we are friends but I just— I don't think it's fair of me to break off a wedding. One I wasn't even told about until now." Riley tells her, she thinks she might be pleading at this point but she's not sure anymore.

"Please," the woman begs. "At least come for a few days and tell me I'm wrong. I need to hear it from someone else besides him. I need you to tell me he's happy."

Riley can feel herself relenting, and she hates it.

"I have a conference to go to in two days," she tells the older woman and she can hear the hope in the woman spark. "I can visit for a day but then I need to fly out to the conference. It's in Seattle."

"That's all the time we need," the woman smiles. "Thank you, Ms. Matthews."

The line clicks and radio silence is left in the place of talking. Without thinking, she clenches her fist until her knuckles turn red and only then does she let what happened sink in. He's getting married.

"Maya, get off my suitcase."

The blonde shakes her head violently, sprawling across the sturdy fabric filled with business clothes and casual wear. "This isn't a good idea, Riley, and you know it."

Riley walks over quickly, pushing Maya off of her purple suitcase and putting the rest of her toiletries in the pockets. "It's Farkle, Maya. I'm not just going to hang him out there to dry. He's our friend."

"You haven't seen him for years, and neither have I! He's long past being our friend, don't you think?" Maya questions, reluctantly deciding not to jump on the unoccupied suitcase again.

"We have known him our entire lives," Riley lectures, stuffing a few books and manuscripts into her satchel. "We owe it to him to help him out, even if he doesn't even need it. We owe it to him to try." She zipped her bag up and starts to walk to the front of her apartment with her suitcase in tow.

Maya runs in front of her, laying a hand on both her shoulders to stop her, "He didn't even tell us he was in a serious relationship, okay? Much less tell us that he's getting married. Doesn't that signal a couple red flags in your mind?"

"Maya, move."

"He didn't send you an invitation," Maya continues, ignoring Riley's command, "He didn't bother telling us anything worthwhile. Instead, he ignored us, ignored you. This isn't your place."

"He needs our help," Riley demands, trying harder to push past the small girl.

"No, he needs to get married and have eleven baby Minkii and he needs you to stay out of it."

"He's not happy, Maya. His mom said so!"

Maya scoffs and lets go of Riley, who stands there annoyed, listening intently to what her best friend had to say. "Yes, his mom said so. But in all our years of knowing him how much time has she ever spent with her own son. He's happy and content, for all she knows."

Sighing, Riley dropped her suitcase and turned to the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboards for a glass so she could drink something. Maya waited patiently for a response, hopeful that maybe this time she had gotten through to her stubborn best friend enough to convince her that this was possible the worst idea that Riley could've had.

"Everything will be fine, okay," Riley assured her, "Nothing bad is going to happen."

Maya raised an eyebrow and looked at her skeptically, "Look, I know I'm not the one that his mom begged desperately to come back to the city to evaluate her kid, you know, that was you. But, I know a bad plan when I see one. I've been involved in many bad plans and this is—this is a bad plan. You cannot do this."

Riley paused for a moment and stared at her best friend who looked desperately at her. "Maya, this is Farkle we're talking about here," she argued. "If he changed then—"

Maya threw her hands up in the air frustrated and upset. "Everyone changes Riley!" she yelled. "It's not concerning or weird!" She took a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair. With a quieter voice she looked away, "People change. It's a part of life, you know that. And if he's not happy, then that's his problem," she grabbed one of Riley's hands, "not yours."

"I know," Riley muttered quietly. "But Maya we don't give up on people. I don't give up on you. I won't give up on him. I don't give up on anyone. And you know that," she demanded.

"It's simple," Maya said, "You just don't do it."

"Maya, you're not listening to me—"

"I am. And if you don't go, then he gets to have a wife and children, without any controversy brought up."

"Maya, all I have to do is talk to him for a couple hours and then I just go back to his mom and tell her that she was wrong. That he's fine and he's happy, with his fiancee. Then I can leave and go to my conference in Seattle and come home and never think about it again. That's all. He'll be happy with his eleven babies and I'll be living it up with my editing and publishing." There's a pause and Riley takes a deep breath. "And everything will be fine. It's not complicated."

"Are you telling me this? Or are you telling yourself?" Maya asks. She sits on the couch and Riley follows, tucking her feet under her. "Riley, when have you and Farkle ever done something easy in the past ten years. You haven't seen him since you decided to have a one night stand with him while you were still together with someone else."

There's no response.

Instead, Riley stands up and with her suitcase in tow walks towards the front of the apartment to the door. "I'm going," she says, a little softer than usual. "I'll see you after I come back from Seattle."

She's hit with a sense of familiarity as soon as her feet hit the pavement in front of her house. It's a weird sort of home now. Like a place that she remembers in a dream, a place where she's safe, but not comfortable. But the street names and the buildings spark fond memories in her mind, and she ambles her way up the stairs with her suitcase and unlocks the door to the building with her old zebra striped key she got when she was nine.

Her parents are ecstatic to see her, and they go on and on about the wedding and how it's going to be lovely and how Connie, Farkle's fiancee, has planned it all. But underneath the excitement, Riley notes, there's worried glances. As if they know why she's really here. As if they know what Farkle's mom already told her: that he's changed for the worse.

Either way she makes her way around the city with them, visiting their old spots and heading out to an old favorite restaurant for dinner. And when they finish the day, Riley slips out the front door as if she was seventeen again, and walks to the part of Washington Square Park that she and Maya had found when they were little.

She's sitting there editing the boring manuscript that she was working on when Mrs. Minkus called when she hears the crinkle of leaves behind her.

Even if she can't see his face, the street lamps behind him show his lanky, figure and his voice gives himself away almost instantly.

"I guess the rumours of you being back were true." he says, and she stiffens at his voice, her fingers bouncing up and down nervously.

She notices the way the syllables fall off his mouth. Quietly amused, as if he can't show how he really feels. His voice is quiet, too, not loud and demanding like it used to be when they were younger a few years back.

"Ah, well," she smiles sheepishly as she looks more directly toward him, "You can't always trust rumours. For all you know I could be a hologram."

He smirks in the darkness and makes his way over to where she sits on the bench, close enough so that her leg presses up against his. He pokes her shoulder but doesn't smile, "Damn good hologram you are."

She lets out an easy laugh and immediately relaxes. "Hi, Farkle," she greets.

"Hey, Riles."

"How'd you know I'd be here?" she asks him, folding her laptop slowly and tucking it into her messenger bag that was laying on the grass.

"I didn't," he shrugs. "I came here and there you were."

There's no details like she expected. There's only simple facts, no big words or expressive language. Just the simplest of sentences to deliver information. And she starts to worry.

"Well, why'd you come here?" she probes, trying to weasel out some information.

He shrugs again, "Reasons."

She notes that it's not even the problem of he's mad at her and deliberately not telling her things. It sounds like he's just answering normally, like there's nothing else anyone wants to hear. Like he's been programmed to answer with nothing.

A silence falls over the both of them and Riley nods awkwardly, looking at the trees and the flowers that surround the trunks of them.

"So what've you been up to?" she finally asks.

He shrugs once more, and God, Riley is really starting to hate the shrugging, "Well, I'm working so that's been taking up most of my time."

"Oh," she says, "Well, where have you been working?"

"Uh, Minkus International, actually," he says, his voice dipping into an awkward tone, as if he hadn't wanted to admit that part of his life to her.

"Wait you're working for—"

"My dad?" he supplies, and she nods helplessly confused. "Yeah, I am."

"But you hate the idea of working for your dad. You want your own company, you've always have. What happened to that?" she waves her hands around for emphasis but there's barely a smile on his face. There's no hint of emotion anywhere.

"Still there," he plays with his hands leaning forward so that his elbows rest on his knees and his head rests on his hands.

She's still turned towards him though, but he's now focused on the forest in front of him. "Then why give it up for the time being when you could be out there, happy?"

"Connie wants a big wedding and I needed a job. It was convenient."

She scoffs and he turns to her then, as if he was surprised but just trying not to show it. "When have you ever done something because it's," she raises her hands to do air quotes, "convenient."

He purses his lips together and shrugs again, "It's not a big deal, Riley." There's still no sense of feelings in him to her. Not even annoyance.

"It's your life, Farkle, it is a big deal. How are you not upset?"

He turns to face and stares right into her eyes, "Because Connie's happy, and she wants a big wedding, and this is how I'm giving it to her."

"You've said that already," Riley points out, her teeth gritting as she does so. "Do you even want a big wedding?"

"Connie does," he supplies.

"That's not what I asked."

He doesn't respond for a while, but she doesn't say anything either. She wants him to do something. To reveal something more than the fact that he's working a dead end job at his father's company when he could be off curing cancer with the wonderful brain he has. She wants him to yell and roll his eyes. But there's nothing. There's not even a smile.

"Do you want a big wedding?" she repeats.

He shrugs.

"Stop that!" Riley yells, shaking her hands violently in front of her. "Stop shrugging as if it's a valid answer you know it's not. Not for me. We don't lie to each other, Farkle."

He doesn't even flinch when she raises her voice, "I'm not lying to you."

"Well, you're not exactly answering my questions either!" she laughs with disbelief, shaking her head and giving an annoyed smile. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong with me," he states, his voice even and calm.

"So what? You're willingly sitting in a stupid office on a stupid floor in your father's stupid building like one of those idiotic dummies? You've never once wanted to become your father's lackey and here you are, doing all his errands and being his little maid. Right? That's what you're doing?"

He doesn't say a word.

"You're acting like you have half the IQ that you have. You're mooching off of your father's successes and I want to know where the person who wanted to fight for himself went. You know, the person who had their own brain? The biggest and smartest brain I have ever seen. Where did he go?"

He eyes her but doesn't respond.

"Do you want a big wedding?" she asks again, emphasizing each word as if that will get through to him. She doesn't even know why she's focused on this question. But she is.

"No! Okay? No! I don't!" he yells all of a sudden, and Riley jumps a bit as his yells echo off every tree and object around them. There's a deep breath and his normal, monotone voice is back, "but Connie does."

"What happened to you?" she asks, this time her voice quiet and defeated. For a moment, a look of anguish passes his face, but he looks away before Riley has a chance to fully notice it. "You wouldn't have let me get away with half the things I'm saying right now."

"Look, I love Connie."

"I know you do," she says.

"I love her."

"Farkle, I know you just—"

"I love her, Riley."

She doesn't say anything after that. But neither does he. They both just sit their quietly and stare off in their own worlds trying to figure out how they ended up here.

"I love her," he repeats again, sighing as he did so.

"You turned into one of those people we made fun of, Farkle. The people who kisses your father's ass to get ahead," Riley says.

"I do important things," he argues, weakly.

"Like what?" she asks but she finds herself not really wanting to know the answer.

"I— I—" he stutters, racking his brain for something that might redeem him.

She lays a hand on top of his knuckles, which were gripping the bench so that they turned white, "It's okay."

"I love Connie, Riley. I do."

"I know."

"But she— she wants me to be more quiet. You know? She has really rich, stuck-up parents and she wants me to be more classy and reserved. Stay in a stable, one room job for the rest of my life like her father does. She wants me to stop making weird noises or showing her up with my own knowledge. So I stick to the facts, the bones of whatever she's talking about."

"Farkle, you're one of the brightest people I've ever met."

He looks at her, and for once she sees sadness and disappointment laced throughout his face. "I took the job because I love her. I love Connie."

She feels a small splash on her hand and she looks over to find him crying a bit. Not large dripping tears but small regretful ones. "Maybe you should take a break from her."

"I can't," Farkle responds almost immediately. "We have the wedding in a week, everything's paid for. I can't. I can't do this to her."

She squeezes his hand gently, "You've already done so much for her, maybe just take a little to do something for yourself. I mean, still marry her. You love her and all. Just postpone it. Like a week or something."

"I can't," he repeats, closing his eyes.

Slowly, she releases his hand and stands up, draping her bag over her shoulder. "Look, I have to go. I have a flight at eight tomorrow morning. It's a conference in Seattle, should be done before your wedding," she says, "so if you want to come along. I'll be at the airport by 6:30."

There's no sound from him, no movement, besides the deep breaths of confusion he breathes out.

She's standing in the baggage check-in line when she sees him. Dark brown hair and a tall lanky body running towards her with a duffle in his hands. He spots her almost immediately and runs towards her. Smiling unsure.

"You're sure?" she asks, eyeing his bag, overflowing with clothes that he most likely stuffed in there the last second.

"Nope," he says, but he nods when she looks at him again. "But I have my own hypothesis to test."

A smile grows on her face and she looks at him for a few more seconds biting her lip.

"Ma'am," the lady at the check-in calls. Riley smiles apologetically and rushes over.

When she looks back, Farkle is still standing there, frozen in place.

"You coming?" she asks and he jerks towards her.

"Yeah," he says, as if he's trying to psych himself up. "Let's do this."

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

He's not really sure when he had started to morph back into himself. Maybe it was when Riley woke up early and sprayed shaving cream in his face in order to wake him up. Or maybe it was the night they spent walking around Seattle together, but he starts to feel better. Like he can think for himself and say what he wants to.

She's not sure which days are the ones that make her feel most alive. Maybe it's the ones that they find themselves face to face talking as if it's high school again, casually and simply, as if nothing had changed. Maybe it's the days that she looks at him and feels her heart stir because Maya was right, nothing with Farkle is ever really easy like she had hoped. But she feels happy.

When the conference is over and they're on the plane watching passengers load their carry-ons in the shelves she tells him that he'll get to see Connie soon. And she asks him if he's excited. But he doesn't respond. And he doesn't say a word until they get to the baggage claim and he hands her her purple suitcase with the musical buttons and stickers.

"Thank you," he tells her.

He takes off before she does, turning right as she turns left. And nothing feels as complicated as her heart feels right now.

She doesn't expect him to be asleep leaned up against his door when she comes home from her proposal pitch of the manuscript she was working on two months later. She expected Maya draped on her couch, eating her chips and watching America's Got Talent on the TV. But she didn't expect Farkle and his tired eyes asleep in front of her apartment.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, her hair falling in her face as she walks towards him.

"Maya refused to let me in. I didn't mean to fall asleep, I'm sorry."

"I meant— your wedding, what hap—"

"Got cancelled," he shrugs and she narrows her eyes as he does so. "Really bad weather." He uses his finger and swirls it around in the air, "Thunderstorms."

"I—"

"Hey," he interrupts, completely ignoring Riley's shocked face. "Do you think I could stay with you for a while?

She nods and grabs his neck, pulling him down to kiss her. And this time, she was sure it wasn't going to be a one night stand.'

This was mostly based off of a Gilmore Girls fic I read a while back so sorry for the similarities.