Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: Written for the TWoP Missing Scene Challenge. An episode tag for The Nana.
Author's note: Thanks to Maud for the beta. She is, like, a dream-beta. A goddess of betas. A beta sundae. And kind of an OK person.
"You know, I've been finding homes for kids like Ryan for over 40 years."
"I know, Ma."
"Yeah, but I never once thought to bring one home with me. You had to show up your own mother, didn't you?"
"Oh, he's a good kid. You should spend some time with him.
The dream still clung to him as stepped out of the pool house and fumbled in his pockets for matches. Trey's lighter had gone missing months ago, and he tried not to think that it might be gone for good, that it wasn't like him to simply misplace something, that it might have even burned in the model home along with everything else he'd owned.
He'd dreamed of Marissa, and of Trey. They'd been singing to him and he'd wanted to listen but he'd felt nervous, anxious because they were loud and he was afraid Sandy would overhear. And Sandy had, and he'd yelled, and everyone had gone still and hazy, like they were painted.
The first match lit with a sharp flare and immediately went out. He guarded the second match in the cup of his left hand and sucked several times quickly on the end of his cigarette. The smoke burned as he swallowed it, but he closed his eyes and held his breath before shaking out the match and exhaling.
It was early, still mostly dark, and cold. Mornings were always cold in Newport, gray and overcast from the fog that rolled in every night. He missed warm nights sometimes, missed the baked concrete under his bare feet in the morning.
He'd awakened to dogs barking, and to the creak of a floorboard that was so loud in his mind that he'd been convinced that when he opened his eyes he'd find Sandy standing over him, glaring. But the pool house had been empty, of course, and the only sound was the dogs. He'd never heard dogs in Newport before, and it occurred to him how unnatural it was that the neighborhood was always so quiet.
"You shouldn't smoke, kid. It'll kill you."
Ryan dropped his cigarette into the pool at the Nana's voice, and she laughed. He crouched and dipped his fingers in the water to grab the wet cigarette, then squatted there, entirely uncertain what to do next.
He knew she was dying. That's what Seth had told him the night before. Seth had actually been crying, a little, and Ryan hadn't tried to tell him everything was going to be okay, because he'd never known someone with cancer before and he didn't know. But Seth had supplied the words anyway, said his grandmother would be fine, that she'd get the chemo and she'd be mean and nasty again, and they'd all be scared of her for reasons that made sense, not because she was dying.
Ryan pinched the cigarette between his fingers and walked to where the Nana was sitting at the patio table.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't really smoke. It's been a long week."
The Nana swatted at the air and shook her head.
"Don't apologize. You can smoke if you want." She leaned forward in her chair, a smile touching her lips, and Ryan thought she didn't look like she was dying at all. "In fact, can an old lady bum a cigarette?"
Ryan raised his eyebrows and glanced at Sandy and Kirsten's bedroom, the blinds still drawn. His stomach ached—the dinner the night before had been great, but it had been his only meal of the day and he was still starving—and he could taste the tobacco on his tongue. He licked his lips and felt in the pocket of his jeans for the pack of cigarettes.
"Sandy won't be up for another hour and you know I won't tell," the Nana said. "I ruined your first smoke and I'll feel terrible if you don't get another one. But you can't smoke in front of a dying woman without sharing, can you?"
That was hardly a reasonable argument, Ryan thought, but he shrugged and walked over to the table, taking out his pack and flipping open the top before handing it to her. She frowned a little at the red and white packaging—Ryan figured she probably smoked something more expensive than Marlboros—but didn't turn it down. When she'd shaken loose a cigarette he threw his matches on the table and sat across from her.
The Nana inhaled deeply on the first draw and fell back in her chair, closing her eyes.
"My son stole my last pack," she said with a puff of smoke. "He can't really believe I'm going to quit cold just because I've got chemo in a few hours."
Ryan paused before lighting his own cigarette. He hadn't known she was starting the treatment today, and he suddenly imagined someone—Sandy, Kirsten, a doctor—smelling the smoke on her and tracing it back to him. He didn't smoke often anymore, but he hadn't quite kicked the habit and Kirsten knew it.
But there wasn't much point in worrying about it now. He lit the cigarette and reached into his pocket again, pulling out a wadded napkin and setting it between them on the table. The Nana raised an eyebrow at him.
"Kirsten hates it when I ash on the patio."
The Nana laughed and reached forward to tap the end of her cigarette over the napkin.
They sat quietly for several minutes, a dog still barking nearby—Ryan figured it was the Coopers' dog, Dusty or Dustin or something like that. He'd only seen the dog once, sitting at their back door and watching carefully as Marissa and her mom fought over a dress. Ryan remembered wanting to leave them and sit outside with the dog, push his face into its neck and scratch it behind the ears.
He was stuck on the dream again, and he hated the way it had settled over him like a hangover, or like precognition, his mind warning him that something was off today. Keeping him alert but unsettled. He finished his cigarette too quickly and leaned down to stub it out on the underside of the chair, where Kirsten wouldn't see the ash marks. He was reaching for another one before he thought of the Nana and paused with his hand hovering over the pack.
"Go ahead," she said. "One more won't kill you. Or me."
Ryan shook a cigarette into his hand and tapped it absently against his thumbnail. Trey had always sworn that packing a cigarette made it taste better, or burn slower, he couldn't remember which. He'd never been able to tell the difference.
"What happened to your arm?"
Ryan lifted his arm and tilted his head to examine the cut on his forearm from when Eddie's friend had shoved him to the ground. It was bigger than he'd remembered, a scrape stretching almost from his elbow to his wrist, and it was red and a little inflamed now. He could see bits of lint stuck in the scab that had formed overnight.
"Nothing," he said, shrugging. "I fell down yesterday."
"Uh huh," the Nana said. She reached for another cigarette without asking. "You should put some alcohol on that before your arm falls off."
Ryan smiled a little and nodded.
The Nana was, now that he thought about it, now that he had time to think about it, exactly what he would have expected in a Cohen grandmother. She was affectionate in an abrasive sort of way—loud and a little bit hysterical, self-deprecating and arrogant all at once. She was already dressed for the day, in casual slacks and a shirt, a cardigan over her shoulders. Comfortable for travel, he imagined, but also fussy, like a grandmother should be.
Not that he knew grandmothers, and how they should or shouldn't be. He'd never known his own. His grandmother, his mom had told him, had held him once when he was a baby, just a few months old. His grandfather had refused to see him, or more accurately, had refused to see his daughter. Ryan had never known anything at all about his dad's parents. But grandparents weren't something he'd ever missed, or thought much about. Same with uncles or aunts or cousins or the rest of the cast that came with an extended family. His own family, the four of them, had been more than enough.
"Seth said you were leaving this morning?" Ryan said.
The Nana laughed. "You're trying to get rid of me already. Just like the rest of them."
"No, that's not what-"
She flapped his words away and kept on laughing.
"I'm just giving you a hard time, doll," she said. "But yes, I'm leaving in a few hours. Kirsten will be relieved."
Ryan thought she was probably right about that. Kirsten didn't often let her guard down, and he'd never describe her as a particularly relaxed person, but she'd clearly been on edge the night before, more careful than usual. More polite. She'd sat stiff in her chair at the end of the table, and picked at her food.
"So, Ryan, we don't have much time. Tell me about yourself." The Nana smiled at him, and her thin lips made her look like she was grimacing but her eyes were warm and friendly. "You play sports? You read a lot? You like school? Sandy says you're a good student, good grades, great test scores. Where are you thinking of going to college?"
Ryan shrugged and sucked at his cigarette, carefully blowing the smoke away from her.
"I'm not sure," he said. "Depends on where I get in, I guess."
Or if he got in. Or if he could pay for it. Or a hundred other ifs that he sometimes considered late at night when he couldn't sleep.
"Do you know what you want to study?"
"No, not really," he said.
"Sandy said something about architecture."
Ryan tapped his cigarette over the napkin. "Yeah, maybe."
"Well, you're certainly the chatty one," the Nana said.
She laughed, and the laugh turned into a cough, until she was hacking into her fist and bent over in her chair. Ryan stood up, hovering over her, not touching and not saying anything and not at all sure what to do. He glanced toward the bedroom, part of him praying Sandy wouldn't hear, most of him willing Sandy to wake up and help her. But then the Nana recovered, and she wiped a hand over her mouth and smiled at him, her eyes watering.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"I'm fine, fine," she said. "I'm sorry I scared you. It's this damned California weather. It's too dry here. And the smog. It's a wonder you don't all asphyxiate."
"Do you want some water or something? I can-" He gestured to the pool house, but the Nana shook her head.
"No, sit down. I'm just fine."
Ryan stood over her for a moment as she wiped at her eyes, carefully rubbing away smudges of mascara. She smiled at him again and nodded toward the other chair.
"Go on," she said. "What were we talking about again?"
Ryan sat and took a quick hit from his cigarette. "You were asking me what I want to be when I grow up."
"Right. And you said you hadn't decided yet."
Ryan nodded, and he realized the nicotine was making him a little bit dizzy. He wasn't used to smoking so early in the morning. He blinked and leaned an elbow on the table.
"Sandy, he always knew," the Nana said. "Even when he was a little kid, he was always standing up for everyone, always arguing with the older kids. He always had to be right. It was infuriating."
The Nana leaned back in her chair, the lines on her face softening as she stared out over the ocean. The fog was beginning to clear but the sky was still pale and gray over the water. He could see a boat, close to shore, heading toward the horizon.
"That's why he left when he was 16. He had to prove to me that he could do it, that he didn't need me."
"Sandy ran away?"
"Oh yeah. You didn't know that?"
Ryan raised his eyebrows and looked down at the table, watching the cigarette burn between his fingers. He'd only known about Sandy's father, and not much about that anyway. That he'd left. That Sandy's mom had worked too much. That Sandy knew where Ryan was coming from. That Sandy said he understood.
Of course he'd never known that Sandy had left his family.
"Where did he go?"
"California. College," the Nana said. "He got accepted early into UC Berkeley. He was a smart kid, no doubt about that. But he made a mistake. Not that he'd ever admit that now. Not to me, anyway. He went to school, and he called me every year on my birthday, and he sent me letters. And when he graduated, he just disappeared. I didn't hear a thing from him for two years. Worst time of my life."
"He disappeared? Where'd he go?"
"Who knows?" the Nana said, shrugging dramatically. "He never told me. All of a sudden he calls me up one day, says he's going to law school. That was it. He wouldn't say where he'd been."
"So, you think he was in trouble?"
"I think he made a mistake," the Nana repeated. She sighed and rubbed her cigarette on the bottom of her shoe, slowly until it had stopped smoldering, then set it on the napkin. She folder her hands on the table and watched Ryan. "Family's everything to Sandy. I just think it took him a while to realize that."
Ryan couldn't imagine a Sandy who wouldn't put his family before everything else in his life. He couldn't imagine what would make him run away once at 16, and again after college, abandoning all the people who cared about him. The Sandy he knew wouldn't just die for his family, he would kill for them, and he would cheat and steal and lie for them. He would take in a stray kid off the street and make him his own, add him to his family without thought.
Sandy would never turn his back on them.
"He knows that now," the Nana said, watching him. "You're right to trust him. He'd do anything for his family. Including you, and me."
She smiled and leaned forward, taking Ryan's hand. Her skin was dry and callused, and he could feel the bones in her fingers as she squeezed his hand. She let go of him quickly and patted his hand before settling back in her chair again.
"Sandy said you went back to your old neighborhood yesterday," she said.
"Yeah, I was visiting some friends." It wasn't a complete lie.
"That's good," the Nana said. "It's good to keep in touch with your old friends. They're your roots. You shouldn't ever turn your back on where you came from."
Ryan stubbed his second cigarette on the underside of the chair and thought it was funny she would say that, because he'd been thinking exactly the opposite the day before. That it was time, finally, to put that past behind him. And not just shove it to the back of the mind, pretend that it had never happened, refuse to think about it. But push forward, push past it.
But the thing was, he'd been glad to be back in Chino. He'd been frustrated with Marissa, and angry with Eddie, and annoyed with Theresa for getting engaged and not telling him. He'd been pushed around and sworn at and threatened. But it had all felt so real, and familiar. The tiny backyard, with patches of yellow grass under the swing set. The girls in pretty dresses that didn't cost more than a couple paychecks. The bottles of cheap beer that came out of an ice chest. The laughter, and the music, and the voices he actually recognized.
Chino wasn't home anymore, he knew that. But maybe there was still something there for him. Maybe he was still figuring it out.
The door to the Cohens' bedroom opened and before Sandy had closed it behind him Ryan had crumpled the napkin and five cigarettes into a ball and stuffed it in his pants pocket. He didn't miss the Nana slipping his pack of cigarettes and the matches into her own pocket, or the quick wink she offered him.
"Wow, look at you two, up before dawn," Sandy said. He jogged up to the table and kissed the Nana on the cheek. "I'm glad you guys got to spend some time together."
"You're right, Sandy," the Nana said. "He's a good kid."
Ryan allowed a small smile and ducked his head.
"What'd I tell you, Ma," Sandy said. "I'm gonna make some coffee. You guys both want coffee? I'll bring it out here."
Sandy tied the belt around his robe and headed toward the house. He stopped when he reached the back door.
"Oh, and both of you," he said, turning to face them again, "wash your hands and brush your teeth. Don't think you can fool the Kirsten."
-end