A/N I know it's been over a year, but hopefully someone will still find this story worth reading. I estimate there are two chapters left after this one. I have a lot of stories to finish, and I plan on knocking them out one at a time. So please review if you still like this story...and Happy New Year!

I think that possibly, maybe I'm fallin' for you
Yes, there's a chance that I've fallen quite hard over you
I've seen the waters that make your eyes shine
Now I'm shinin' too
Because, oh because, I've fallen quite hard over you

-Landon Pigg "Coffee Shop"

It had been months since Ryan had remembered that fateful night that had taken everything he'd ever loved from him, but for the moment he was doing okay. The months had been spent going to therapy and just hanging out with Marissa in general. Sometimes he broke down and refused to leave his room, much less go to therapy, and Marissa would drive to his house and drag him out of bed. They'd end up going to a comedy or she'd tell him funny stories from her childhood that made him smile and forget the pain for at least that moment. She was always there, always helpful, and she made him feel like there was a reason he'd survived that day.

It was a therapy day which meant he got out of work early so he could see Marissa. When she called him into the office, he smiled at her and said, "Hey."

She closed the door behind him and said, "Hi." He knew the drill so he went to sit down in the black leather couch that Marissa had placed in front of her own chair. She'd redecorated the office after he'd said it felt more like he was going to see the principal than getting help. Now it had plants and artwork on the wall that made you stare at it and just feel like talking about the most random yet important things on your mind. She sat down across from him and looked over at him with her hands clasped together. She bit her lip, which he immediately knew meant she had something on her mind.

"What's wrong?" he asked, reaching over to take one of her hands into his.

She looked down at their hands together and let out a long, deep sigh. "I've been thinking a lot lately about us and our friendship," She started. He ran his thumb along the top of her hand and her breath caught in her throat.

"What about it?" he asked softly, looking at her intently. He knew her and knew that she didn't come out and say something without carefully choosing her words.

She took in a deep breath and then said, "Ryan, I can't be your therapist anymore."

Her words hit him hard. "What do you mean by that?" he asked quietly, not able to understand how she could just say this out of the blue. Their therapy sessions had been going great, hadn't they? They'd made some major progress and he honestly looked forward to talking about his feelings with her.

"It means exactly what I said; I can't be your therapist," She said softly, refusing to look at his eyes. He took his hand from hers and stood up, now running that hand through his hair.

"I can't believe this," he said sadly. He was quiet for a few minutes and then finally said, "Can I at least ask why?"

She sighed and said, "There's a rule in the books that psychiatrists can't treat their friends or family." She looked over at him to see that he was still refusing to look at her. It hurt her, but she knew that he needed his space right now. "So it was either be your therapist, or be your friend."

"And you chose to be my friend," He stated, the realization of what this meant hitting him. He glanced over at her to see her smiling slightly at him. He smiled back and said, "Oh."

She nodded and stood to walk over to him. She stood in front of him and nodded. "I shouldn't have become friends with you. It was against my ethics…but maybe this will make it alright."

He pulled her into a hug, something they did quite frequently lately. She rested her head in the crook of his neck and breathed in his manly smell. He rubbed circles on her back and it sent chills through her body. She knew it was wrong to feel this way for him, even if she wasn't going to be his therapist anymore, but she couldn't help it anymore than she could help the sky being blue or the grass being green. "Thank you," he murmured, and then kissed the top of her head.

She smiled into the crook of his neck and replied, "Don't mention it."

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"Okay, so that was probably the worst movie I've ever seen," Marissa said with a roll of her eyes at the end of the movie, It's a Wonderful Life.

Ryan shook his head and said, "I happen to like this movie. It's one of my favorites."

Marissa looked over at him with raised eyebrows. "Seriously?"

He nodded and said, "It has a pretty happy ending, something that makes a movie great in my books."

"First of all, the movie was in black and white, which is totally a turn off for me," Marissa said, reaching for the bowl of popcorn that was set on the couch in between them. "Second, the beginning is really boring. Parts of the movie drag on for a long time, and what about the guy that plays the main character? He looks the same from when he's a teenager to when he has his kids. That's just wrong."

Ryan took the popcorn bowl away and she frowned. "Okay, yeah, I agree with you on the color of the movie, or lack thereof, but you have to admit that the ending was really nice."

"What? The cheesiness of what would happen if he hadn't been there? And how this 'angel' made him realize that he really as better off alive than dead? I don't buy it for a bit," She said with another roll of her eyes, reaching for the bowl. "That kind of thing doesn't happen in real life. Look at the suicide rates."

"But suicide is wrong, and if someone stops it then it's a good thing," he pointed out.

She shook her head and said, "The movie was too unreal for me. If things like that happened every day, then I wouldn't have a job." She climbed on top of him when he wouldn't give her the popcorn bowl and said, "Now give me the popcorn!"

He still held it out of her reach and tried not to notice the way she was straddling him. "No, not until you admit the movie is good."

She shook her head and said, "Not going to happen. Life isn't solved by angels mysteriously coming down and ending depression and all of our problems."

"Maybe it isn't, but the movie is, and you have to admit that it's pretty nice to imagine a world where angels stop someone from killing themselves," he said, looking at her face with a small smile. "Come on, admit that you liked the cheesiness of the movie…I won't tell anyone."

She finally caved and said, "Okay, maybe it was kind of nice."

He smiled and handed her the popcorn bowl. She grinned and got off of him and sat beside him. She grabbed the remote and changed it to some news channel where they saw something about a suicide. She sighed and he said, "That's a horrible coincidence." He looked over to see her mind a million miles away. He put an arm around her and asked, "Where's your mind?"

She blinked quickly and came back to the present. "I used to have a client like that."

"Like what?" He asked softly, trying to understand what she was going through.

"Depressed…suicidal…the whole shebang," she said quietly. She looked out into space and sighed, then put the popcorn on his coffee table.

"What happened to them?" he asked, his heart going out to her.

She was quiet for a long time and he almost thought she didn't hear him until she whispered, "She killed herself."

The pain on her face was heart breaking so he pulled her closer to him. She buried her face into his chest. "I'm so sorry…" He murmured, not sure what else there was to say.

"She was a teenager, only fourteen," Marissa said after a few minutes. "Her mom hadn't wanted to get her help earlier, until finally her father dragged her to therapy. She was so closed off, empty…so broken."

Ryan rubbed her back soothingly and murmured, "So what happened?"

She pulled away from him and stared off into space, leaning her head onto his shoulder. "It was one of my first cases I was assigned to alone. I was still getting used to the fact that I was finally what I'd wanted to be since I was in high school. I was a rookie, so to speak. I had never met anyone like her before; someone so deeply depressed that they seemed to be only a shell of who they used to be." She let out a long sigh and then said, "One day she started to open up to me. She told me about how she used to have this great relationship with her dad, but how ever since her grandmother had fallen sick earlier in the year they had started to argue and never could find something nice to say to each other. She talked about her younger brother who started to tell her he hated her, and about how her friends had seemingly abandoned her. She talked about her rocky relationship with her mom, and then she talked about how her grandma – who she'd always seen as loving – started to hurt her.

"I put her on antidepressants and told her parents that she was going through a rough time, and that maybe they should all go through therapy sessions together, as a family, to get to the place that they needed to be. They both refused. Her father didn't think there was a problem between him and his daughter, and the mother was against therapy in general, so she was left with her pills and the occasional therapy session that her parents remembered to take her to.

"She told me one day that it was getting worse all the time. The pills weren't working, only making things worse, so I told he we should try something else. Everyone responds differently to medication, so I figured maybe we only needed to find the right one for her. One day she came in and told me that her mom said she couldn't go to therapy anymore. I asked her what she thought about that, and she told me that she didn't really know what to think anymore, that nothing was helping her…that maybe it would be better if…"

Marissa's voice broke and a lone tear fell down her face. Ryan put his hand on the side of her face and wiped the tear away tenderly, his eyes glued to her face. She looked over at him and stared into his eyes for a long time, trying to erase the pain that still haunted her from that certain patient. "Right before she left, I told her that she needed to stay strong and find someone to talk to. I gave her my number, which is against the rules, but I needed her to know that I cared enough – that someone cared enough to want her to be okay.

"I got a call a few nights later. It was obvious she'd been crying, her voice was distorted and I heard a lot of sniffling. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me everything. I tried to console her, to get her to tell me what was going on, but she only said, 'I've lost everything; my family, my friends, my life, and now you too. I'm not good enough anymore…this life isn't worth it..' I tried to convince her that it was going to be okay, that I'd call her parents and tell them to get her some more treatment…that I'd fight this all the way with her." Marissa's voice squeaked as she sobbed out, "But she told me that it was already too late, that there wasn't a point to getting better anymore. And then…"

She broke off and wouldn't finish the rest, only started sobbing into his chest. "Shh, it's okay," he murmured, kissing the top of her forehead. "I'm here, shh, don't cry."

When she regained control of herself, she finally said, "I had heard weird noises in the background, but I hadn't know what it was. I figured that she was in her bedroom under the covers, trying not to be heard by her parents or something. Then she came out and said, 'I'm tired of everything, Marissa. I'm tired of fucking everything. It hurts too much to go on. I'm doing everyone a favor by doing this. I just wanted to tell someone goodbye.' I asked her what she meant, but all she said was, 'goodbye, Marissa,' and then I heard this loud boom, and then it said something about the call being ended. I called her parents, and they were hysterical. I went over to the house to tell the police what she'd said, and I saw her body."

She looked deep into his eyes and he saw so much pain that he couldn't breathe. "She used a shotgun, Ryan. Her head was scattered all over her room. That fourteen year old girl, gone. She ended her own life, all because she didn't feel like she was worth anything, because she thought no one cared." She buried her head into the crook of his neck and sobbed, "I cared, Ryan. I really did care, but she couldn't see it. She was only fourteen…"

"I know," He murmured, kissing her forehead tenderly. He pulled back so that he could see her face and tenderly took it into his hands. "It wasn't your fault, Marissa. I know that you think it is, but it isn't. Sometimes people are just severely sick in the brain and they're set on this one way of thinking that nothing can ever get any better, so they do that to themselves. Sometimes there are angels that can save them, whether they are real or just an average person, but sometimes they just can't be saved. Sometimes they're not meant to be saved."

She looked into those blue eyes of his that she loved to stare into and let herself believe that maybe he was right. Maybe it wasn't her fault. "Why couldn't I save her though? I feel like a life has been lost because I wasn't good enough."

He shook his head and gave her a small, sad smile. "You weren't meant to save her. You saved someone else in her place."

She looked at him confusedly and asked, "Who?"

He stared deeply into her eyes, into the depths of her heart, and said, "Me. You saved me. Without you, I wouldn't know what to do. I literally didn't have anyone, and then you came along and I…" He trailed off, wondering if he should continue, if he should tell her that he'd fallen in love with her.

She searched his eyes for the words that he was about to say, but she couldn't find them. "You what?" she asked softly, desperately needing to know the answer.

"Nothing," he said, plastering a fake smile upon his face. They both knew he was lying.

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Ever since his almost love confession, Marissa had been avoiding Ryan. Well, she was technically very busy, and when she told him that she was swamped with work, she wasn't lying, but she still didn't make a point of setting an hour or two for him. She couldn't. Not when she felt this strongly for him.

The other night had erased all of her doubts; she'd fallen in love with Ryan Atwood. She'd fallen head over heels in love with her ex-client, and she knew it was wrong. She knew that people would never take her seriously as a psychiatrist ever again if they knew how easily she'd fallen in love with him. It felt as if she'd just let go of everything that she'd ever believed in and now she didn't know what to do. She just knew that she could never act upon the feelings, and in order to do that she had to distance herself from him.

One day she was working late at the office when Ryan barged in. "What have you been avoiding me?" He asked angrily, getting right to the point.

She looked over his shoulder to see one of the people that worked with her giving her an apologetic look. "He just barged in. I could call security…"

She shook her head and said, "That's not necessary." The woman shrugged and walked out of Marissa's office, shutting the door quietly behind her. Marissa then turned to Ryan and said, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, so the fact that you haven't really talked or seen me in over a week isn't a big deal?" He asked, his eyes blazing. "What'd I do?"

"Nothing. I'm not avoiding you. I've just been really busy," She said with a sigh, putting her face into her hands.

"Look at me when I'm talking!" He practically shouted at her. Her eyes shot up and he said, "So your work is more important than me?"

"No, but.."

"It sure seems that way. Do I not mean anything to you?" He asked dejectedly, plopping down onto the couch.

"Of course you do," she replied whole heartedly. Too much, she wanted to say.

"Are you just playing me? Is that all I was to you; just another client? You take my money and then when you get tired of me you tell me we can be friends, and then you just completely ditch me? Are you going to be like everyone else in my life?" He asked, his eyes completely devoid of emotion.

"Ryan, that's not fair, you can't accuse me of that," She said, feeling her heart break to pieces at the pain she'd obviously caused him.

"Fair," he said sardonically. "You know nothing about that word. Not fair is watching your family get shot right in front of you. Not fair is being forced to remember a night that you wanted more than anything to forget. Not fair is being told you will get over something that eats at you every single day. Not fair is being forced to stop therapy because your therapist happens to be your only friend." He stood and as he talked, started walking to the door. When he got there, he turned around and quietly said, "Not fair is falling in love with someone that obviously doesn't love you back."

And then he walked away.

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She didn't know why she was there. She knew it was wrong, that she should take this opportunity to avoid him and never have to worry about these feelings again. She really didn't know why she was knocking on his door, and why her heart beat was beating a million miles an hour. And most of all, she didn't know why when she saw him she blurted out, "You were wrong. I do love you." But she did know that when he looked at her with eyes that sparkled like a million diamonds in the sun, she wouldn't have it any other way.

"You…you do?" He asked happily, standing aside so she could walk inside his house. She slowly walked in and nodded at the same time.

She looked into his eyes and felt tears rise to her own. "Yes," she said in a broken voice. She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned her face closer to his. "Yes, I do."

And when their lips meant in their first real kiss, she knew that she was royally screwed, because Ryan Atwood was a wonderful kisser. He held her face tenderly in his hands and his lips moved over hers in the gentlest way that made her completely melt into his hands. She knew that they shouldn't be going this fast, but she also knew she'd wanted him for months now, and she couldn't take it anymore. It was because of this that she said, "Maybe we should move this to the bedroom."

Her hands were shaky as she undressed him, and he even smiled at her obvious nervousness. "I'm not going to hurt you," he promised, kissing her lips softly. "I promise I won't. And if you don't want to do this, then we don't have to. We can take it slow."

She leaned in and kissed him hard on the mouth, completley silencing him. "No stopping," she mumbled against his lips as she finished undressing him. His hand shook as he took her shirt off her head and she teased him. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"I know," He said, staring into her eyes, completely mezmorizing her. She knew staring into his eyes that he had complete faith in her. He thought she could never hurt him. She really hoped that he was right.

And when he entered her, she knew that she shouldn't be doing this, that she shouldn't be making love to Ryan, no matter how much she loved him. But she also knew that at the moment, she didn't give a damn about her ethics, only the feeling of having the man she loved inside of her.