It was the Saturday before the first day of their senior year and Riley had, to everyone's surprised, managed to get permission from her parents to have an unsupervised sleepover with the small group that had been together since she could remember. Her parents and Auggie had gone to Pittsburg for the weekend to visit Riley's grandparents, and they deemed Riley responsible enough (she was sure it had to do with Farkle's being there too) to have her friends over with nothing bad happening.

They were right.

Even though the five of them didn't spend every waking moment together anymore and had made their own friends in whatever sports and clubs they'd broken off to, they still came together easily when they did. Farkle and Zay were at war over some video game of Auggie's while Lucas waited for his turn by busying himself strumming lightly on Maya's guitar, which he'd been trying to master for the past six months. Riley had contorted herself into what looked like a very uncomfortable position on an armchair and was flipping mindlessly through one of her magazines, and Maya was scrolling through Lucas' phone changing some of his settings (his lock screen was now a picture of her giving herself a mustache with Riley's hair) as well as the names of all of his contacts.

"Maya, would you say Lucas is a summer or a spring," Riley asked absentmindedly, causing Maya to look up and study Lucas with a furrowed brow as he glanced between the two of them in confusion.

After only a few seconds of scrutiny she declared him a 'summer for sure', although she really didn't understand what seasons and looks had ever had to do with one another. Riley nodded though, so she figured it was a job well done.

"What does that even mean," Lucas questioned. He finally set the guitar off to the side, more interested now in why he was suddenly the topic of some gibberish he didn't understand. He sat forward on the coach and as he looked over toward Riley, trying to catch a glimpse of the magazine article she was reading, Maya took the opportunity to bury his phone a ways in the couch cushion so that he wouldn't see it immediately and figure out what she'd done.

"It's a guide on what colors you should be wearing to accentuate you better. I'm a winter, Maya's a summer too," she explained as though that should have been the easiest thing in the world. This caused Lucas to take the magazine from her hands and scan over the page, trying to figure out just what the fuck these crazy women were even talking about. It wasn't much of a help. All he saw were different color pallets that he didn't know anything about.

"Good Y'all can have nice summer babies and name them summer and move someplace where it's always summer and stop distracting me from this game," Zay called out without looking up from the tv set in front of him. Farkle hadn't even noticed a word had been said it seemed.

Lucas chuckled but Riley and Maya ignored the outburst entirely. They'd grown pretty used to ignoring one another's outbursts. Of course, they were usually from Maya.

Riley cocked her head to the side and looked at Maya more intently. It seemed that she was very intrigued by seasons for god only knows what reason. "Do you think it works like that? Could two summers have a spring or an autumn? I didn't really pay attention too much in biology." No, of course she hadn't, because they'd taken that class back in the days when Riley was too obsessed with Lucas to care about anything they were learning unless it was molded to fit her interests perfectly. That had been years ago though, hence the allowance from the Matthews' to allow Lucas over unsupervised.

"Don't ask me, I'm not even having kids."

Well this response just wouldn't do and it earned Maya a very pointed glare from her brunette best friend. "Of course you're going to have kids. Why would you think you aren't going to have kids?"

The truth was, Maya had this fight constantly, be it with her mother or with her Gammy Hart or the OB/GYN when she'd gone to get birth control for the first time. Her frustration with it showed as her shoulders slumped and she let out an exasperated sigh. This was exactly why she and Riley had never had this conversation before. "I don't want to have kids. I want to adopt and I don't think winter or spring is a checkbox on the adoption form."

Nobody knew if it was because the silence was so deafening or because the boys actually cared about the personal admission from their friend, but the game controllers and magazines were down. All attention was on one another. Riley looked like a hurt puppy for reasons nobody could really understand because it wasn't like Maya had said anything wrong. "Is there something wrong with you? Can you not be a mom?"

Riley looked worried for her friend and this was exactly what Maya expected. To not be understood. "What? No. I just want to adopt. I got left. A lot of kids get left. I don't feel right about having a child when there's another me in some house somewhere wondering why she wasn't good enough. I'd feel guilty." She could see the wheels turning in Riley's head and decided quickly to amend her statement. "It's not like I think this is true for everyone. Farkle told me he wanted like fourteen kids, I don't think that makes him a bad person or anything. I get that some people want that for themselves. They want that structured fairytale of falling in love and getting married and having babies that are made up of two halves of love into one whole perfect being. That just isn't how I see it going for me. That isn't something I want for myself."

Riley nodded, a little more sure of the thought process, but still obviously not completely behind it. Riley wanted that American dream though and Maya knew that. It was never going to make sense to her that some people didn't crave that normalcy that her parents had. Maya got it. It wasn't a big deal.

"What if whoever you end up with doesn't feel the same way," Farkle pressed on. Really, Maya should have felt awkward being the center of such attention. She wasn't sure how or why this was happening but it was actually kind of nice to get her thoughts out there to people whose opinion she cared for.

She thought about the question, but not too hard. She moved a piece of hair behind her ear. "I don't know, I guess I feel like that's such an important part of who I am that it's just a given that whoever I'm with will feel the same way, or at least support me. I don't see how I'd ever get far enough to talk about kids with someone who didn't share the same values as me, you know?"

Riley still looked a bit hesitant and it kind of annoyed Maya because it wasn't Riley's life. She didn't have to approve of the choices that Maya made for herself. She knew it was just because her still ridiculously sheltered best friend hadn't ventured outside of her bubble much though.

Lucas, who had been quiet even though he'd helped start this entire debacle, finally spoke up to champion for Maya of all people, although it wasn't really a surprise to anyone. "I think that makes a lot of sense. I can't see you falling in love with someone from a perfect family or something like that. You're the type of person who connects on that deeper level. If he doesn't understand your darkness then there's no way."

The way that Lucas hit the nail right on the head shook Maya a bit. All she could really do was nod. Thankfully, the moment was shattered with an, "I guess I can understand that. I just think you'd make a really pretty baby," from Riley, which allowed them to start laughing and joking about how many of their own kids they wanted and the fact that Riley would definitely name her first born child Princess.

A few hours and five banana splits later everyone was asleep but Maya. Riley was in her own bed, Farkle in Auggie's, and Zay was on the couch. Lucas was camped out on the living room floor, which meant Maya had to walk right by his head to get to the fridge to grab the jar of cherries. She sucked in a breath when he stirred, not wanting to wake him, but it was too late. "What are you doing," he asked in a whisper. She held up the jar as an answer and he immediately got to his feet.

With a nod of her head she gestured for him to follow her. She climbed out the living room window and onto the fire escape where she sat on the landing and moved over to make room for Lucas. She uncapped the jar and took a cherry, holding it out for him to do the same. The fire escape wasn't big so they were sat with their shoulders brushed up against one another, but they didn't seem to notice.

"I really liked what you said earlier. It made me think about my own future." He twirled the empty cherry stem around between his fingers as he spoke.

Maya looked up at him and smiled. She hadn't taken him for someone who would have any doubts in that department. "Oh yeah? I thought you had it all figured out, Mr. Perfect. Become a vet, fall in love with a school teacher, have three little girls with snow white hair and green eyes who help you brush your horses after school," she teased.

Lucas let out a low chuckle that quickly turned into a sigh. "Why three little girls?" It was a weird thing to add in he thought. A little too specific for her to not have a reason, or at least a joke to go with it.

"Oh, you're having girls. All girls. There's no way you're having boys." She didn't say it as if she were just making things up. She said it in a very matter-of-fact tone, as if she'd gone into the future and scoped it out for him. "You were built to be a tough dad. If you don't use all of that," she gestured with her hand up and down his body, "to scare off teenage boys and pick up broken hearts then it's just a waste."

Lucas turned his head to study Maya for what felt like a minute but was probably only about four seconds before completely agreeing. "I'm too damn sensitive for sons anyway," he admitted, happy to elicit a genuine laugh from Maya. "Why don't we talk more," he asked finally, a little quieter.

"I don't know but we can talk whenever you want, Cowboy." She meant it, but she had no idea what she was inviting in by saying it.