Author's Note: I own nothing... this idea came to me while watching the finale and other OC moments and realizing that Sophie would figure things out eventually.


Sophie Cohen always knew something was different about her family. She knew her dad was smarter than he knew, and her mom could have been anything in the world, that Seth was her super hero and Ryan was everything to her.

She was a month from being five when her brother Seth got married, it was her first time as a flower girl. She was almost six when Sarah and Aaron were born, even at that age she realized that her family wasn't exactly what others were. She noticed that she and Sarah and Aaron were closer to her age than her brothers. She knew that was different than most of her friends at pre-school.

Sophie knew that she and Ryan looked like their mom and that Seth looked like their dad, though Ryan and Mom got kind of twitchy when she would say something like that.

Sophie knew something was different when she was six and she broke her arm. She remembers falling off the swing set and it hurting a lot more than it ever had before and then when she woke up she was in the hospital and feeling woozy, she remembers that Seth and Mom and Dad had band-aids on the inside of their elbows but Ryan didn't. She remembers him sleeping next to her bed and when he thought she was asleep crying as he apologized for not being as good of a brother. She didn't understand what he meant but she put her hand on his head and told him it was all right.

She knew that it was not exactly what expected when she was seven when Ryan finally got married. Her new sister-in-law was from 'back East' as her dad said. She spoke with an accent and Ryan seemed to love her, at least that was the emotion Sophie thought it was, he looked at her the same way that her dad looked at her mom. Her name was Caroline Anne McNeil but went by Carrie. She was a pretty girl with long hair and she let Sophie play with it. She and Ryan were married in the back yard just like Seth and Summer, with Sophie and Sarah as flower girls and Aaron as the ring bearer.

Sophie always knew there was something different about how her parents dealt with Ryan and how they dealt with her and Seth. They didn't talk about Ryan's birthday parties or his bar mitzvah like they did with Seth. And it wasn't until Carrie had Maggie, Margaret Claire McNeil-Cohen, that Sophie had realized that the something was actually different with how Ryan became a Cohen. She didn't know how she hadn't known before then, but it was when she was in the hospital room with Ryan and Carrie the day that Maggie was born and she looked through the cards and flowers sent from the people who couldn't be there. There was one from The Nana, there was a bunch from Ryan's office and a few of his big clients, there were some from the people that Carrie worked with, it was the set of flowers that were small but pretty, that caught her eye. She didn't know who would send them. She found the card and looked at it and did a double take. Not thinking she turned to the room,

"Mom who's Trey? And why did you send these flowers? We brought the other presents." Everyone froze and everyone looked at Ryan and Kirsten.

Just then the nurse came in, "Hello everyone, the doctor is going to come in and you all need to step out."

The entire family stepped out and Ryan and Kirsten looked at one another as Sophie stood between the two of them, looking back and forth.

"What?" she said.

"Soph why don't you, me and Mom take a walk," Ryan said as he leaned down to her level.

"Okay," she said as she grabbed his hand. Once they got outside, to the garden, Ryan and Kirsten sat down on a bench and Ryan pulled Sophie to his lap.

"Sophie you know how there are pictures of me when I was pregnant with you?" Kirsten began slowly.

"Yea, and ones of when you when you were pregnant with Seth."

"Right, did you ever notice that there were no pictures of a time when I was pregnant with Ryan?"

"Yea," Sophie said as she looked at her mom.

"Why did you think they weren't any?"

"I thought Ryan burned them… like Carrie did." Kirsten looked confused as Ryan burst out laughing.

"What?" Kirsten asked.

"Carrie didn't like the pictures of her when she was in elementary school, so she burned them when she was about 13, her mom managed to save only what was in frames or in baby books."

"Oh, what… never mind," Kirsten said as she smiled at Sophie and Ryan.

"Anyway," Ryan says, trying to redirect the conversation. "I didn't burn my pictures. Your mom and dad don't have many of my pictures of me because I didn't live with our parents until I was 15."

"Why not? Why weren't you with mom and daddy?"

"Well I have another mom and daddy."

"Why didn't you stay with them?"

"Well, Our dad found me when my other brother, Trey…"

"From the card!"

"From the card. Anyway, Trey was doing something he shouldn't have and I got in trouble with him and Dad was my lawyer and got me out of the trouble Trey got me in."

"You were a client?"
"Kind of, but when Dad saw me he saw that I wasn't like anybody else he had worked with."

"He saw that Ryan was smart and that he had a lot of potential, and Dad worried that he would get in more trouble if he left him where he found him," Kirsten summarized, knowing that Ryan didn't want to tell his little sister about his stint in juvie just yet.

"So," Ryan continued. "I lived with Mom and Dad and Seth in the Newport House. And at first it was hard, because I couldn't see how they could love me because I wasn't like them."

"Why weren't you like them?" Sophie asked. "You look like Mommy."

"I wasn't what people expected as a kid who went to Harbor and lived in Newport and a lot of people didn't like me because of that."

"That's just dumb," Sophie said.

"You're right," Kirsten responded. "Anyway so it took everyone else awhile to love Ryan like we do, but now, we can't imagine life with out him."

"Right," Ryan said.

"So Ryan isn't my brother?"

"No, Soph, I'm your brother by heart, not by blood. But, we go so far back, we go back to the day Mom told us boys she was pregnant and the moment you were born in the Berkley house. Just because we don't have the same blood doesn't mean we're not brother and sister."

"You're like that thing that is on Nicky's brother's and sister's birth card!"

"What are you talking about?" Ryan said looking to Kirsten.

"One of the families on the street has adopted kids," Kirsten explained.

"But the words on it," Sophie said trying to explain. "The thing at the top."

"Not flesh of my flesh, Nor bone of my bone, But still miraculously my own. Never forget for a single minute, You didn't grow under my heart - but in it." Kirsten said as her eyes welled up and she smiled at Ryan and Sophie. "That's right, Sophie Rose, that's exactly right."

Sandy walked out to where they were sitting. "Hey Soph! We can go back in now, and they're going to let us hold Maggie Claire! Hurry before Seth gets her first!"

"Can I go Mom?"

"Yea Soph, go ahead."

She jumps off Ryan's lap and then turns around. "Are you guys coming?"

"We'll be inside in a few minutes okay?"

"See you there," Sophie says as she runs off to Sandy who swings her into the air.

Ryan and Kirsten watch them walk back inside and then Ryan turns to her. "I know you guys love me and I love you, but do you think that quote is true?"

"You know what? I know when you first came into our lives I was…"

"You were what you were."

"I was a Newpsie-Ice Queen- Bitch is what I was Ryan, and I'm sorry for that you know?"

"I know."

"But, once you were with us and we had our routine, I realized that part of me felt more whole. That part of my heart didn't hurt as much anymore when you were with us," Kirsten said as her tears began to spill over.

"Mom," he whispered.

"I'm just saying that part of me loved you before we knew you and that you were a part of the Cohen family before any of us knew you, from the day you were born I bet. And that that part of me would have always missed you with out knowing that that was what hurt."

"Mom," Ryan said trying not to cry, he pulled her into a hug as both of them smiled through their tears.

"Hey you two!" they hear Seth shout across the garden. "Sophie is threatening to take her new niece home and put her in doll clothes if her father doesn't come in! And I mean I'm not sure but I don't know if Carrie can fend her off, she did a lot of work today!"

"I think we should head inside," Kirsten said.

"Yea, I'm not sure how my wife would feel if my sister started putting doll's clothes on our daughter."

"I saw the flowers and clothing that Taylor sent from Paris."

"Yea," Ryan said blushing as he and Kirsten began walking back inside.

"I'm glad you found Carrie, I don't know what I would do if Taylor Townsend was my daughter-in-law."

"I know, I'm not sure what I was thinking."

"I'm not sure if you were."

"Yea," he says laughing. "You know what?"

"What?" Kirsten says smiling at him.

"I'm glad I was born in your heart," he says wrapping Kirsten in a hug.

"So am I Ryan Cohen, so am I."

As they walked inside Ryan said, "You know, that Sophie Rose, she knows things."

"She does, our Sophie Rose is a wise little girl, knower of all."

"Knower of all," Ryan says as he holds the door open. "I like that."

Sophie looks up from holding the baby as Ryan walks in. "Ry?" she asked as he comes walks over to Carrie.

"What's up Soph?"

"I'm glad you were born in mom's heart," Sophie said as she looks at her newest niece. "And I'm glad daddy found you."

"Me too Soph," Ryan said as he looked at his family. "Me too."