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After Christmas, Shawn starts visiting more often. He still won't explain why he felt so empty and alone and left the city, but they don't press him (much) and make every visit as happy as they can.
He starts bonding with Riley and Auggie, and especially Maya. He still teases Farkle about being a clone, even though it's beyond confirmed that he isn't. (Farkle, of course, takes it all in good humor.) He even gets to see Minkus and the two slip easily back into their old ways, teasing and annoying each other, though there's more affection behind it now.
One night he finally breaks down and tells them. How Angela met someone in Europe, broke it off to come home to him, but at that point they'd started to grow apart. "I did the noble thing and let her go, but I hoped she'd come back to me. She married that Spanish guy," he says, fighting back tears.
Topanga had been seven months pregnant, and he hadn't told them. Instead he stayed long enough to meet the new baby and then left. When he's done talking, Cory holds him tightly and Topanga rubs his back, both silently wishing they hadn't been so caught up in their own lives that they'd seen the obvious signs of heartbreak.
"We're sorry, Shanwy," Cory finally says.
"You should have told us," Topanga gently chides, "We'd have been there for you."
His visits become more and more frequent after that. Sometime later he makes arrangements at work to be able to do his blogging from the city, moving into a cheap apartment near theirs.
He tries dating again. Maya's mother, some of Cory's fellow single teachers, a girl he meets at a Starbucks, one of Topanga's co-workers. They're nice women, but none of them feel as comfortable as a night on the couch with Cory and Topanga, watching movies and laughing about old times.
He's become a father figure to Maya by now. One day, they go out for ice cream and she comes up with the wildest idea.
"You should move out of that dump and in with them."
"But they're married."
"So? You're practically married to them both anyway," the girl says, licking the back of her spoon. "At least stay and be Riley and Auggie's uncle forever. Now that you admit you love them like your own kids."
"It'd never work," he says, but deep down he wonders if she's right. Of course she is. She's me reincarnated. Or...born a second time. As a girl.
As it turns out, Cory and Topanga have the same idea. They trade their double bed for a king-size, for starters. And Shawn finds himself spending more and more nights at their place until Riley suggests the same thing Maya did.
"We all want you here. Just pack up and make it official."
His first night as a permanent member of the Matthews household isn't anything fancy other than the cake Topanga picks up from Svorski's Bakery. They eat chicken with macaroni and cheese and string beans, watch Godzilla Goes to College and put Auggie to bed. All three of them. After Riley's gone to sleep, Shawn settles into the new huge bed with the two people he loves most in the world.
"Maybe this is how it was meant to be," he says, his head against Cory's shoulder and Topanga's arm around his waist. He'll always miss Angela, she'll always be in his heart, but she's happy now.
And so is he.