Disclaimer: Friday Night Lights (the series) do not belong to me, but to its respective owners (the creators, producers, NBC, DirecTV etc.). I am merely the mind behind this little story.

Author's Note: This story was my entry for this year's NaNo; I didn't even get close to 50, 000 words, but I still loved writing this story. I have most part of the story written, but I'm not yet sure if I'm going to post it. So, for the time being, this will be a one-shot. Also, beware: this is a pretty angsty and teary story, but that was my reaction when Tim and Lyla (spoiler alert!) broke up at the end of season three. This chapter takes place just before season 4 started off; before they both headed down their different paths.

Thanks for reading!

Chapter One – Saying Hello, Saying Goodbye

September, 2008

Dillon, Texas

It is a cloudy day; a humid, cloudy Texan day in September.

Tim wakes up with a chest ache, of all things, and he can't really believe that he is heading to college on this cloudy day. In some ways, he is proud of how far he has gotten these past few months. He remembers the day he and Jay and Lyla went to the river and sat around the fire and he made that joke about going pro.

They had laughed. He had laughed.

Yet here he is, on this god awful September day and he can't really breathe, because he is heading for San Antonio and he already misses his bedroom. He lies on his stomach and he tells himself that he can feel a faint smell of Lyla on his sheets, and he is certain that it will fade the minute he leaves.

He doesn't know what scares him. Maybe it's the fact that he knows nothing will be the same the minute he leaves for college, and when he returns home, home will be unrecognizable. Maybe it's the fact that failure is no longer an option, because Billy has put all his faith in him – his brother truly believes that he, Timothy Riggins, can be a role model to his unborn nephews and nieces.

Tim, however, isn't sure about that. He's not sure about that at all. It's not what he wants. He doesn't want to be a hero in the eyes of innocent children, because he will fail in front of them and their trust in their Uncle Timmy will vanish.

It will fade, and it will vanish. Like everything in life eventually does.

He hears movement beyond his closed door, and Tim groans because it means Billy is up and will begin badgering him any minute now. It'll soon be time to leave and he isn't ready. He will never be ready to do this and all he wants is to stay home.

There's a soft knock on his door and Tim ignores it, guesses it's Mindy being kind (which isn't often, but with her recent mood swings, you just never know), but it isn't.

"Tim?" he hears her say and his heart stops beating for a fraction of a second.

"Lyla?"

She was supposed to leave early this very morning, and Tim had been prepared not to say goodbye. They had, after all, broken up not too long ago.

Tim turns in his bed, from his belly to his back and as he lays his green-gray eyes on her shy figure by the threshold, his heart quickens its pace. She is torture and he doesn't know how much more of this he can take.

Her dark, doe eyes are staring straight into his, and she has both hands on the doorknob, standing with a foot on top of the other.

"I thought you were leaving this morning," he says, a bit indifferently, but she doesn't care. She knows him well enough not to be offended. She knows this is what he does when he's trying to let go. He creates space; a vacuum hole, a black hole, infinity in between them.

Tim can't take the ferocity of her eyes – it hurts. But he takes it. He's been known not to mind the pain, as long as it reminds him he's alive.

"I wanted to say goodbye."

"Lyla… I thought we already had," is his reply, with a sigh, but she doesn't budge.

Lyla is leaving for Tennessee, for Vanderbilt, and Tim is proud of her, more than he can ever say. But he's angry – he's angry that this is how everything ended up being. He can see himself living with this girl until the apocalypse itself, but life goes on and she needs to go on with it, has this bright future ahead of her. He will not hold her back.

She doesn't answer, but if she would have, she'd say that saying goodbye never gets old and if it means you can see this person once again before an actual goodbye, it's worth it. Goodbye never gets old. And it never gets less painful.

What she does instead, to his surprise (and relief?), is that she walks over to his bed and she gets under the covers and she slithers an arm around his waist and she looks up at him with her innocent doe eyes and they fill with tears because this is that final goodbye before she leaves for her future and he for his.

He has never been comfortable with crying in general, but when he sees her like this, all he wants to do is protect her and he wants to never leave his bed. He wants time to freeze and he wants her by his side forever.

Tim strokes her cheek, dry her stray tears away, and they stay silent as the summer clouds roll in above their heads somewhere. There's distant thunder and rain will soon be falling.

Heartbroken, because this will end soon, he lowers his face so that it is parallel to hers and they lock their gazes, speaking volumes without uttering words.

He is saying that he will always love her, has always loved her, and will always be there. He will be there when she returns.

She is saying that she wishes she had seen him for what wonderful and complex person he really was earlier in her life, because it pains her to think of all those months they could have had together and didn't.

"It's not like I won't come back," she says suddenly, tears still gathering in her eyes.

"I know," he says with a small smile, but they both know it's not really true. That's a promise she hasn't made and won't make, because she will not return. Not until she settles down for good. There's nothing there to feed her brilliance.

He kisses her now. Their lips meet halfway and he tries to soak everything in as he kisses her. It's different this time – their kiss. There's a bittersweet taste in this kiss; there's no longer forever.

When they draw back, she nuzzles in his chest and he wraps both arms around her, protectively, not letting go anytime soon.

He falls back to sleep – a light sleep where lights and images and incoherent events invade the brain and he can't make sense of anything – until something jerks him awake and he realizes it's the sudden cold.

Lyla isn't there when he wakes up.

He's not sure if she'll ever be again.

**

When his heartbeat suddenly slow down and his breaths seem to deepen, Lyla looks up at Tim and sees that his eyes are closed and that he's fallen right back to sleep, she smiles.

She savors the moment, breathes him in, and tries her best not to be overwhelmed by the raw reality of the situation at hand. She is leaving, and while she convinces herself that she'll be back soon enough, she knows that isn't true.

Her mother and siblings live in California, she's going to Tennessee without a clue of what to major in and her father, who will stay right where he is, won't expect her to come back. He expects her to live her life, to experience life outside of Dillon and the idea of her returning after college is laughable to him. She knows this, because he lectured her on it.

At 8 am, Lyla has to leave. She lies as still as a lethal animal would before attack, so still that the sound of her heartbeat echoes in between the four walls of Tim's room. But then she moves and the magic of complete stillness vanishes into golden dust, fades away and the moment of goodbye has arrived.

She is happy that he's asleep, she's happy that he won't have to see her cry again, because if he would, she doesn't think she would be able to leave. His entrancing eyes, his captivating eyes, that would be emitting protection and love, would promise her safety and she would have stayed by his side.

Lyla unhurriedly sits up in bed and Tim stirs, causing her heart to stop beating for a brief second. She can't handle another goodbye – it was enough with the first one and they have been saying hello and goodbye for more than a week now. She can't deal with it, because it's too sad.

You move on in life as soon as you allow yourself to, and they have let themselves move on.

Not knowing what else to do, she sweeps her fingertips across his rough cheek (he hasn't shaved in a fair few days) and then across his forehead, touching as much skin as possible. Then she smiles and pecks his cheek and he doesn't wake up, which is a surprise because usually when she does this, he wakes up and he catches her lips with his.

He doesn't this time and she wonders how much he had to drink the night before. If she wouldn't be leaving for college in twenty minutes, she would be mad and she'd wake him up and she'd give him a piece of her mind.

But she is no longer his girlfriend.

She is the past; a memory that will most likely fade with time.

So she spills another tear, just because she can't help herself and because this reality is breaking her heart and she stands up, slowly. And at the door, she looks back on his sleeping figure and again, she has to smile – a watery smile, the saddest of smiles – and she whispers her tiny goodbye and then closes the door behind her.

She stifles her sobs as she practically runs out of the house and to her car, avoiding looking back, because if she does, all she'll want is to go back.