Author:cheekymice.
Rating: PG
Beta: Oh soooo not beta-ed!!...all its many mistakes are mine.
Disclaimer: I don't own The OC, Ryan or Benjamin McKenzie.
Story: For dunbaby...snagged from an idea over at ocplotbunnies.
The Tempest
Part 4
Kirsten couldn't count all the feelings that enveloped her body as she stared at the wreckage of what used to be the pool house but horror, dread and paralyzing fear for Ryan were the main protagonists.
It was eerie standing in the downpour with only the sounds of the wind in the air and the rain splattering on the ground. Sandy and Seth were silent, standing as if made of stone, Kirsten was sure that the look she saw on their faces was mirrored on hers.
One of the tiles slipped off the pile of rubble in front of them and crashed down onto the marble at their feet, it was as if that singular noise broke the spell that held them in its thrall.
She called out to Ryan, screaming his name.
Sandy and Seth were already scrabbling at the ruins, both frantic as they threw dusty concrete, wood and terracotta behind them.
Kirsten ran back into the house, stubbing her bare foot against the door jam in her haste but didn't stop to check the damage as the pain didn't even register let alone melt the numbness that had settled itself deep in her bones. The scuffed and broken skin wept crimson on the pale wool under her foot as she dialled 911.
" What is your emergency?" The operator calmly asked.
Kirsten wanted to curse and scream at the operator for being so cool when Ryan was currently buried under the pool house, she had no right to feel that composed when people's lives were being torn asunder.
Kirsten choked out what had happened. She didn't know if she was making sense as she tried to articulate how urgently they needed help. The operator with her frosty-assed voice asked her to repeat everything again. Kirsten tried to slow down; she tried to annunciate her words properly irrationally thinking that if she did then Ryan would be okay, using her words as a lifeline to a situation she couldn't control. She was shaking as she walked out into the rain again to watch her husband and son as they worked desperately to free Ryan, explaining as she stood what had happened clearly, begging for help.
"Ma'am, just hold tight. The fire and ambulance service are on their way."
Kirsten didn't remember ending the call, she didn't remember putting the phone in the pocket of her robe. She was working in autopilot now. She joined the men, ignoring the relentless wind and rain, only concentrating on getting her son out alive. They formed a chain, working a frantic and desperate ballet.
"Where are they, why aren't they here yet?" Kirsten paused, straining her ears to see if she could hear sirens over the organic sounds of the storm, she pulled a wet lock of hair out of her eyes and took a slab of plaster from Seth.
"They'll be here soon." Seth said almost as if he was speaking mostly to reassure himself.
They both stared at each other; unspoken words floating in the air only to be beaten with the virtual baseball bat of hope, making the negative thoughts fall to the ground with a dull thud between them.
"Oh god…Ryan…Ryan." Sandy's voice broke through their telepathy and they watched his stance change as he redoubled his efforts.
Kirsten stumbled over the broken bricks and stone after Seth as they raced to where Sandy worked.
She looked down as Sandy and Seth laboured. A pale patch of Ryan's skin peeked through a gap in the roof material. She tentatively reached out her hand and touched the grey dusty flesh, scared that she might disturb the precariously balanced debris but the need to connect with Ryan was too strong.
She squeezed his arm, scared that he wasn't responding to her or Sandy's words.
They worked tirelessly and quickly to clear all the rubble off of Ryan, cursing that help had not come yet. Seth mumbled that the storm must have been stopping the rescue vehicles from getting through maybe the roads were blocked. Soon a large hunk of wood was all that lay between Ryan and the help he needed. Seth grabbed at the other end of the large beam that covered Ryan, Sandy straining at the other end, his foot slipping on the sludge that was forming under their feet from the rain mixing with the powdery plaster fragments.
"You've got to help us Kirsten." Sandy breathed heavily and shook the water off his face like a dog.
She reluctantly gave up her hold on Ryan and steadied herself as she gripped the wood at Seth's end to try and pick up the slack of her son's slight frame.
They heaved at the huge slab of wood. Teeth clenched hard with the effort, neck muscles taught and straining, shear will doubling their strength as they lifted.
Kirsten cried as her arms started to shake and her legs trembled with the extra weight bearing down on her joints.
"I can't hold it." She shouted.
Seth had a fixed expression on his face but the strain was also clear to see.
Sandy's hands were also slipping on the wet wood and he knew it was only a matter of seconds before his cold and bleeding hands lost their grip. He shouted for them to swing the beam as far to the left of them as possible, away from Ryan. They used all the energy they had left and the beam crashed down with a resounding thud. They all staggered and stumbled back as it slid back towards them on the uneven surface.
Sandy didn't have time to think, he lurched forward, grabbing Ryan by his sweatshirt and dragged him towards him as fast as he could before the beam crashed back to the place where Ryan had just been laying.
They all stared in shocked silence at what might have just happened but that quickly changed to relief that Ryan was now free of his tomb.
Sandy flipped Ryan over in his lap. He looked down at Ryan's closed face, his eyes tightly shut and his face impassive. A thin trial of crimson ran down his cheek but apart from that he looked completely unharmed.
Sandy put aside his fear over moving Ryan because as far as he could see he had no choice. He ignored the voice in his head telling him that maybe they should have waited for professional help. So far none had arrived, the only sound around them was of the distant crashing waves and the wind trying to find its path through the trees and houses.
"Where's that fucking ambulance?" It was the first time he'd heard his son cuss to that extent in front of them but it probably mirrored all their sentiments.
Kirsten knelt down next to Sandy, touching Ryan's face and gently shaking his shoulder.
"Ryan baby, please wake up."
"He's going to be okay…right dad?" Seth's voice was pleading as he scrapped his sopping hair back of his face.
His father didn't answer.
Something settled in Sandy's stomach, a deep-seated fear that plucked at his heart and made his throat tight. It wasn't just that Ryan was unconscious; there was something wrong in the tilt of his head and the limpness of his limbs. He swallowed thickly and stared intently down at Ryan, his eyes searching for confirmation he was mistaken.
Something must have shown in his face. Kirsten knew him too well. They'd had years of studying the subtle nuances in each other's faces over the kitchen table and in the bedroom.
"Sandy?" Her voice broke in the second syllable and he so wanted to be wrong. He tried to hold it together but he couldn't and he knew that Kirsten could see the naked fear in his eyes.
"Sandy…no…no." She whispered the words and he knew that Kirsten understood what was showing on his face.
He bent his head down and hugged Ryan's body close too him, desperate to feel the soft rise and fall of Ryan's chest, needing confirmation that he was wrong. Sandy placed the palm of his hand flat on Ryan's rib cage and rested his cheek against Ryan's face. He felt nothing and he couldn't stop the strangled cry from escaping his mouth.
"Dad…what's wrong…. dad?" Seth started to back away, already shaking his head in denial.
Sandy lifted his head, aware that his lips trembled uncontrollably as the full comprehension of the situation hit him.
"He's gone."
The sound of sirens turning into the gated community carried on the wind and almost drowned out Sandy's words and the sound of Kirsten's wail…. almost.
It was a warm and bright Tuesday when they buried him. It seemed wrong that the birds nesting in the surrounding trees of the chapel sung cheerfully and swooped overhead.
It was also so wrong that a cool breeze blissfully caressed the skins of the funeral party as they stood solemnly watching the mahogany casket slowly disappear down into the ground, when something that seemed so innocuous today was what brought so much devastation on Newport less than a week ago.
High above the group below a butterfly struggled and struggled before finally managing to emerge from its cocoon. It waited patiently for the suns rays to dry its body and give it much needed strength before it tested its wings. It flew off high into the sky, carried by the warm thermals, relishing freedom after the oppressive closeness of its larvae form.
Guilt was a main theme of the group.
Sandy wished he hadn't moved Ryan that night. Maybe if he'd waited and let the fire service and EMT's do what they were trained to do then Ryan would be with them today. It didn't matter that the autopsy report stated clearly that Ryan was probably dead from the second the heavy beam fell and crushed his neck, severing his spinal cord and compressing his windpipe effectively and cruelly cutting off his air supply. He needed to blame someone and he needed that person to be himself.
When he took Ryan into his home he swore to protect him from the world but he hadn't realized that Newport showed the same amount of blatant disregard to Ryan as Chino had done. Abandonment, violence and death had followed Ryan with a dogged determination culminating in the ultimate betrayal and that made Sandy so angry. Fate had managed steadfastly to intervene no matter where Ryan was living and it was such a waste of a human spirit that had refused to be broken. Sandy wondered where things had gone wrong. It seemed so unfair.
Seth felt guilty that he'd never really let Ryan know how much he'd meant to him. Ryan had never known that he was more than a friend, more than a brother because he'd never told him.
He'd just taken it for granted that Ryan would always be there. And maybe one day, when they were both a lot older and Ryan was his inevitable best man Seth had pictured telling Ryan how he'd given him his life back all those years ago when he'd showed up in Newport to rescued him from a life of terminal boredom and invisibility. They'd laugh about it all being a bit too 'minty' but it would be one of those moments in life that you treasured along with the birth of your first child and the day of your retirement.
Except he'd never get the chance now, that chance had been quashed by the senseless act of a tree being torn from the earth in a storm.
Kirsten felt guilt at The Newport Group. Why hadn't they built their pool houses incorporating the same legally ridged safety features as their houses? Why…because they were never meant to be used as permanent residences. They were only ever meant as a convenient place for the pampered of Newport to change in and out their swimsuits and mix cocktails in. At the most to be used as an occasional crash pad for drunken guests. The pool house was never meant to be a home and if she looked closely at the terms and conditions of all the deeds… as she had done many times since the storm, it stated clearly in the legal speak of the 'obsequious don't sue us' kind that should any fire, earthquake or flood hit Newport then the pool house was not built to withstand such events.
Why had they let Ryan walk out into the storm that night? Because the pool house was Ryan's home, it had become synonymous with Ryan and none of them had given it a second thought. Why hadn't they insisted he stay inside with them that night? Why? She didn't have an answer and she hated herself for it.
She kept an unopened bottle of vodka in the back of her closet to test herself. Today she was going to throw it away, she wasn't strong enough without Ryan around reminding her…reminding her of what she didn't want to become.
Julie felt guilty because all she could think about was how Marissa wouldn't be alone; she now had someone to take care of her.
Summer felt guilty because she knew that Ryan's death had ripped a chasm in their lives in a way Marissa's own death had never done. That made her feel so disloyal to her oldest friend but Ryan had touched people in a way that Marissa never could. Ryan was a one off and it saddened her more than she realized that she would never see Ryan's shy smile again or ever hear him say 'Summer' in that way of his where he elongated the word and made it sound special.
Taylor wiped her eyes with her right hand, her left gripped tightly onto Kaitlin's hand. She wondered if anyone would ever make her feel as beautiful and worthy of love as Ryan had.
Kaitlin stood staring numbly at the ground and wished she could turn back the clock, back to the time when she'd first met Ryan. She'd be nicer to him, a whole lot nicer than she'd been back then. She'd been such a spoilt little bitch, she'd fed off the vicious vibes her mother and the other Newpsies were throwing Ryan's way. She'd just jumped on the bandwagon hoping to curry favour with her mom. She felt guilty because even though she'd been young and never usually cared about what people thought, she had seen how much their cutting snipes had hurt him.
He had never held it against her, held it against any of them. In a place that almost prided itself on the unpleasantness that seethed like a permanent undercurrent, Ryan had chosen to rise above it.
Ryan had been nice to her when he didn't have anything to gain.
He'd understood her.
Ryan had made her feel safe.
She wished she'd been nicer to him when he first came to Newport.
Dawn, Frank and Trey Atwood stood in silence, each wresting with their own demons as they watched their son and brother being lowered into the ground.
Behind the Crab Shack the cat watched her kittens play in the sunshine. They stalked and jumped on the shadows and fragments of take out litter wafting down the ally.
The little black and white mottled kitten saw something that made its eyes grow large, it crouched low and wriggled its behind several times before it pounced.
It patted at the vibrantly colored fluttering wings. It toyed with the butterfly, letting it take off before slapping it back down to the ground repeatedly.
The kitten quickly lost interest when the butterfly's wings eventually stopped fluttering and it lay still and broken on the ground. It bounced back over to its brother and sisters as they batted and bit each other in a high-energy game of tag.
The cat let her kittens play and rolled on her back in the dust, for once content with the world.
The End
Thanks for the reviews people. Means a lot. "Kisses"