Moi? Updating once again. I never thought it would happen, but believe me, it is one of the greatest miracles. Sorry about the delay, what with dentist appointments and trips to Vancouver and Moss St. Markets and plenty of tests, it had taken a while.
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Theresa and Ryan laughed as they hauled the unsold items back into the house. Pilar hadn't gone to the market since her husband died, and now she went to work while Theresa took care of the market.
"What do you mean I was late Tuesday? I wasn't!"
They both heard her, even though the door was closed. Neither of them said anything, but instead listened intently.
"Please, Mr. Packford, I didn't-- I wasn't, please..."
Ryan looked at Theresa, who had her eyes closed and was fighting back tears.
"Ok. Next week is my last week?" Ryan heard Pilar start to cry. "Alright."
Ryan laid his hand on Theresa's shoulder, letting her know that he was sorry without saying a word. He never had needed to say anything to Theresa and Jayne. They always knew what he was thinking, and it scared him. Theresa slowly pushed the door open, and tried her hardest to seem like she hadn't heard her mother lose her job.
"Hi mom!" she said through false cheerfulness.
"Hey sweetie." said Pilar, looking away.
"How did it go at the market?" she asked nonchalantly.
"It went great, mom." said Theresa, putting the money box in front of her mother and leaving the room. Ryan followed her, waving at Pilar as he went. He closed the door and sat beside Theresa, who stared straight ahead.
"It'll be ok." said Ryan after several minutes.
"Really? Because it doesn't seem like that to me."
"I'll get a job, you can get a job until you-- can't, and it'll all be fine. Really."
Theresa nodded, and lay down on her bed. Ever since she had left Newport, she noticed that no other bed felt as comfortable as the one in the pool house. They all felt hard and rough, while the mattress on Ryan's bed had seemed soft and bouncy, and when she slept she always had nice dreams.
Ryan covered her with a blanket and kissed her on the forehead. He closed the door behind him and went to Arturo's room to sleep. He needed it.
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The California sunshine woke all the Cohens up the next morning. Seth boogied his way down to the kitchen first, where he made himself some flavored oatmeal and coffee.
"Ah, brown sugar and maple. How I missed thee."
Kirsten and Sandy came down next, watching as Seth stretched and yawned over a ridiculously huge bowl of oatmeal. He had immediately started stating his plan to his parents.
"Ok. Now I'm going to lay out a plan and we'll have to follow through with it, alright?"
Both parents nodded. Seth placed his hands on the table and looked at Sandy and Kirsten.
"Alright. Mom, your job is to stay at the home front, understood? If Ryan calls and says, I dunno, 'I'm brooding and sad, pick me up to go home now so I can brood at home!' or something, call us and we'll be there quicker. If he shows up here, call us and we'll drive back at crazy speed. If, Moses forbid, something has happened to him, and the cops call here, call us, and get to wherever he is. We'll meet at said location. Everything clear?"
Kirsten nodded. "So anything that happens, I call you?"
Seth closed his eyes and bobbed his head up and down many times. "Exactamundo."
"What about me?" asked Sandy, looking at his son.
"Ok, I'm the brains and since Ryan isn't here, you're the brawn." Seth glanced over at his mother, who was laughing uncontrollably.
"I'm sorry, your father, the brawn? I'd be better at that. As a matter of fact, I think I can beat Sandy at an arm wrestling match." Sandy nodded scoffingly at her.
"Thanks, sweetie, you're ever so kind."
"Hey! Hello? Parentals? Back to the subject at hand. We'll pay surprise visits to Ryan at Theresa's house, and then find out exactly when he's home. Like, say, in the middle of the night. Although, I really don't think it'd be such a great idea to sneak in on him, since he does not deal well with surprise wake-up calls."
Seth knew that was a fact. Once he had snuck into Ryan's room at night to tell him about Summer's compliments on his "abilities". He had been so excited to tell anyone about it, he had shaken Ryan awake and received a punch in the face. The action had been so quick, Seth hadn't even realized it was happening until he was stepping back a few feet.
What had scared Seth the most was the way Ryan had woken up. The sweat was visible on his forehead as the moonlight glimmered on it, and his eyes were wide, looking for his attacker. It had taken more than thirty seconds for his breathing to steady, and even longer for him to see Seth, hands near his face, standing almost right beside him.
Seth had kept his distance until he saw Ryan frown and reach for his face, touching the sweat that had accumulated there. He had looked to his side and seen Seth, who was looking at him, his eyes questioning him with an equal mix of guilt, anger, and confusion.
"Wha-- Why are you..." Seth hadn't exactly known what Ryan was asking him.
"Did I-- Oh god..." Ryan had put both hands over his face, taking a shaky breath. At this point, Seth had felt so bad for him that he had gotten a few steps closer and patted his friend on the back.
"It's ok, buddy. Don't worry about it. It was my fault, really. I shouldn't have snuck up on you like that. I was a little excited." Ryan had taken another deep breath, trying to look at the damage he had done.
Seth had a bruise on his cheek, but no further damage as far as Ryan could tell. It looked like it was going to hurt the next day.
"What the hell happened to your face?!" Kirsten had asked the next morning, as Seth trudged into the kitchen, his face an ugly combination of pink, purple, and blue.
"Morning mom."
Ryan had guiltily stepped in afterwards, not looking at anyone. His hair had looked disheveled, as though his hands had been run through the blonde strands a hundred times. He had explained everything to Kirsten, who wasn't quite as angry as he would have imagined. Sandy had come in soon afterwards and had whispered something to Kirsten about Ryan's nightmares. Ryan had gotten off with an afternoon's grounding, while Seth got a severe lecture about sneaking in on people while they slept. Especially if that person was Ryan Atwood.
"Yes, we all know about Ryan's sleeping patterns." replied Sandy, and Seth shook his head, realizing how off track his thoughts had gone.
"Ok, so we should be off. See you later, mom." Seth delivered a kiss on the cheek to his mother, and she wondered if maybe the surprise trip to Catalina, as Seth had told them was his destination, had been good for him. She would never tell anyone she thought that though.
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"Theresa?" asked Ryan, knocking on the door of his friend's room.
"Yeah?" she asked from inside, opening the door so he could come inside.
"I'm going to, uh, drop my resume off at some places."
Theresa laughed, much to the amusement of Ryan.
"You have a resume?" she asked.
"Yeah. 'Course I do. Sandy helped me make it." Theresa examined his face. He had the biggest smile on it, obviously proud of the memory that was surely lodged in his head.
"Well, there's a couple of bucks above the fridge, so you can go make copies."
Ryan nodded. "Gracias." He rubbed his neck and smiled at her.
There was an awkward silence, and Ryan suddenly cleared his throat. Unfortunately, Seth Cohen was not there to fill the silence, as he always did.
"I'm gonna go." he said, waving as he opened the front door. Theresa waved back.
"Don't forget to be back by four! My mom is making sopapillas." she shouted before he closed the door, laughing when she saw a thumbs up appear, then quickly disappear.
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"Hey, you know what? We could stay the night in a Chino hotel!" said Sandy, false enthusiasm in his voice.
"Do you think they have toilet paper?" Sandy looked at Seth, eyebrow raised.
"Come on, Seth. It's not that bad."
"Perhaps they just have to settle for scraps of wood strips." Seth mumbled, secretly smiling.
"Hey! You don't know that Seth. Maybe they have recycled paper cloths." Sandy knew he shouldn't be making jokes. Hell, yesterday he was crying in his car, wishing he had the strength to drive off the edge of the road and die. There was something that radiated off of Seth that made him happy all the time. It was part of the reason that he had wanted to kill himself when Seth had gone off.
"I'm warnin' ya. You run away, I'm comin' with you."
Sandy shuddered as he remembered the words. Seth hadn't promised when Sandy asked him never to run away. Seth didn't know how Sandy had freaked out when he found out about his departure. He didn't know the thoughts that ran through his head.
Maybe Seth was dead. Maybe he was unconscious and washed up on a shore somewhere. Maybe he was hurt in some way. Maybe he had amnesia and had forgotten all about them. That was when Sandy chastised himself for watching way too many of Kirsten's soap operas.
"You know, I'm still not over the little trip to Catalina." said Sandy suddenly, causing Seth to ditch the smile on his face and nod seriously.
"I know. And I'm really sorry."
"You had me incredibly scared. You know that, right?"
"I know." said Seth, head bowed.
"Now this time you have to promise me that you'll never run off like that again, understood? Promise me."
"I promise." said Seth seriously, and he looked up and smiled at his dad.
"Dad?" he asked after a few minutes.
"Yeah?"
"How often does Ryan have nightmares?" Sandy gulped, suddenly thirsty.
"About once a week." he replied, noticing how Seth's eyebrows raised slightly.
"That's pretty often." he said, nodding.
"Yeah. They're pretty scary, too. Sometimes, when it takes a little longer to calm him down, I listen to what he says." said Sandy, his eyes narrowing slightly as he stared straight ahead of him.
"What does he say?" asked Seth, his voice dripping with interest.
"He tells people to stop hitting him. Rob, Steve, Dave... Dawn..." he finished quietly, peeking over at Seth, who frowned. "He freaks out if you touch him, too. He starts kicking and screaming, and then completely breaks down. I'm talking full blown tears and screams.." Sandy paused and took a deep breath. "I hadn't realized how horrible his childhood was until the first time I heard him." Sandy grimaced. He hadn't noticed how much information he'd let slip out until he looked at Seth's shocked face.
"I-- uh. I didn't know. I tried not to think of his past a lot. I like to believe that he's always been with us..." Seth laughed at himself and looked over to his father, who gave a sad smile.
"Sometimes I think that too. When we have dinner together and talk. When-- when we go down to the beach. Those dreams, they're wake up calls. They always remind me that he's not ours. That he had a past and that it's not pretty. And now that he's in Chino, it makes it even worse because now-- now he really isn't ours. And it makes me think--"
"He was never ours to begin with." finished Seth.
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"So you worked in construction a few summers... worked a summer at 'The Crab Shack'?" The man looked at Ryan curiously. "In Newport?"
Ryan nodded.
"And now you wanna work here. In Chino. In a grocery store."
Ryan nodded again.
"Well you have enough qualifications, and we're low on staff, so sure. Why not. You can start work tomorrow." The man didn't shake Ryan's hand, but he nodded and got out of the office. Ryan got up, quite proud of himself, and walked out of the open door. He heard a familiar voice and spun around, looking to see where it came from.
"Marco, just go to the liqueur store and buy me some gin, alright?"
"Alright." replied Marco, waving and walking out the grocery store.
"Mom?" asked Ryan, the slightest of quivers in his voice.
"Baby? Is that you?" questioned his mother, turning around and looking at him.
"Aw, baby I missed you so much." She reached out to hug him, and he stood there, rigid. As though he were frozen solid.
"Why are you back here in Chino? You visiting your brother?"
Ryan shook his head and looked down. He knew better than to look at his mother in the face. Especially now that he was back to being trash.
"Naw. I-- I live here now." He chanced a look and saw the shock on his mother's face. It slowly changed to understanding, and he looked down again.
"Well, you ever need a place to stay or anything, you call me. Here's my number." She searched for a pen in her wallet and took Ryan's hand. She was surprised at how cold it was. She wrote down her number on the back of his hand and held on to it, afraid to let go again. Ryan finally pulled his hand back, and used it to wave at her as he walked out of the store. He couldn't really believe what had happened.
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Seth knocked on Theresa's door, fists hitting it in a strange rhythm that Sandy found familiar. They heard the lock click and the brown haired girl appeared, smiling at them.
"Hi there, Theresa. I'm Seth. The weird one. I'm not sure if you remember me, but I--"
"You're the one with the plastic horse. I remember you." Theresa cut him off. She noticed that he looked down and moved his shoe around, his face turning a noticeable shade of pink.
"Yeah, yeah that's me."
"I thought you weren't with your dad... Weren't on some sort of sailing trip?"
Seth frowned, but nodded.
"Yeah. I came back."
"Well Ryan will be really glad to see you. Because I'm guessing you're here for Ryan." said Theresa, glancing from father to son and smiling.
"That we are." said Sandy, returning the smile. He was going to get Ryan back. He just knew it.
"Well he'll be back in about a half an hour. He just called me a couple of minutes ago. He got a job down at the grocery store!" She couldn't keep the excitement from her voice. "You guys can come in, my mom's making sopapillas. They're delicious." The two Cohens shrugged at each other and entered the house.
The smell of cinnamon and sugar filled their noses, and Seth sniffed the air greedily.
"Sopapillas, eh? Never had any, although it smells ridiculously tasty. Muy bueno." Seth smiled at his Spanish, clearly proud of it. They heard the door squeak open again, and this time, it was Ryan.
"Hey Theresa, I got you some--"
Sandy and Seth looked way too happy to see him. Ryan shook his head. He thought he had imagined Seth standing there.
"Seth? I thought you would be halfway to Catalina by now." Seth smiled, not shocked that Ryan knew where he was going despite the fact that his parents hadn't told him.
"Yeah, well, I had something to do." Sandy looked at his boys and smiled. He knew that it isn't going to be this easy, but he liked to think so.
They all sat down to eat. Ryan's heart was beating faster than it ever had before. He felt closed in, as though he were locked in a closet. He looked around the house, as though searching for an escape, but everything seemed to have a dead end.
The half dinner, half lunch was over faster than expected, and Seth told Sandy and Ryan that he was going outside for a breather. He looked in Sandy's direction, making sure he knew he was just going to make a phone call to Kirsten. He waved the phone around when Ryan wasn't looking. Sandy discreetly got closer to him.
"Don't tell your mother to come down here. It'll scare him off. Tell her he's here and he's fine, alright?" Seth gave a thumbs up and stepped outside.
"Ryan, can I talk to you?" Sandy watched Ryan pat Theresa gently on the back and followed him into the next room, putting the cloth he was holding on a nearby table.
"What are you doing here?" asked Ryan the second the door closed.
"I came to get you back. I mean, I've got one of my kids back, why not get the other?" Sandy tried to smile, but the glare he got from Ryan prevented him from achieving his goal. He took a step towards the teenager, who took a step back. His eyes darted around the room, once again calculating the escapes he had, in case he needed to use them.
"I'm not your kid." The statement, although true, made Sandy feel dead on the inside.
"You're my kid in every way except name."
"And blood." Ryan snapped, his hands crossing over his torso. He took another step back, hitting a desk, and stepped to the side, trying to see if he could sneak past the older man. Unfortunately, just as always, his assailant was much larger than him.
Sandy took another step forward and noticed that Ryan was starting to panic. His eyes glanced from left to right without settling on any object for very long, and his breathing quickened.
"Why are you scared, Ryan?" Sandy asked, surprising himself with the question.
"What are you talking about? I'm not scared..." The way his voice broke seemed to indicate differently. He took a few deep breaths and managed to calm himself down. Sandy's looming figure was making him nervous, and as much as he liked to think that Sandy was unlike the others, right now he didn't know what to think. He kept on remembering Sandy's voice over the phone. The way his tone had made him shudder.
"If you think I'm gonna hit you, you're very wrong." Sandy answered the question Ryan was too scared to ask and tried another step, winning a small battle when Ryan didn't move.
"What do you want from me?" asked Ryan, this time staring directly at Sandy, his blue eyes questioning and desperate.
"What do I want from you? All I want is you, Ryan, don't you see that? We don't want to force you back to Newport, we just want you to come on your own. We need you to see that we made a mistake and we're trying as hard as we can to fix it, but if you don't make an effort to help us redeem ourselves, then you'll be the one making the mistake."
Ryan's lip quivered, and for a second, Sandy thought he was going to burst into tears. He took another deep breath to steady his breathing and calm himself down, and Sandy took another step forward. His attempt to get closer to the boy was shot down as Ryan pressed himself against the wall and shot out his hand, signaling Sandy to stop.
"I told you Ryan, I'm not letting you go." Sandy's eyes were welling up, and he wanted to wipe them with his hands, but all he could do was maintain eye contact with Ryan.
"I don't need you to let go. I need you to get out." His tone was cold, clear, and sharp.
"Ryan..."
"I said get out." He maintained his staring contest with Sandy until the man nodded and turned away. Sandy returned to the kitchen to find Seth sneaking brown sugar and cinnamon handfuls into his mouth.
"I waf just getting weady to help cleam up!" he yelled, caught in the act. The little particles of cinnamon-sugar flew everywhere, and Sandy covered his face with his hands to avoid the flying matter.
"We gotta go, kiddo." said Sandy, placing his hand on Seth's shoulder and squeezing gently.
"Wyan's coming wid us? Cool!" The little bits of cinnamon kept on flying, and Sandy turned away for a second.
"Sowwy." said Seth, swallowing the rest of the sweet topping.
"No, Seth. Ryan's not coming with us. We gotta go."
"But--"
"Seth. Now." Sandy pointed at the door, ignoring Theresa's curious stare. Seth wiped his mouth with his jacket and got up. He shuffled out of the house, head bowed.
"Thank you very much for the sopapillas, Theresa." said Sandy politely, closing the door before Theresa had a chance to say goodbye.
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The second that Sandy was outside, Seth was in his face.
"What the hell was that? You said we weren't gonna leave until we got him back! I don't see him here beside me, do you?" he spat out.
"Seth, Seth!" Sandy finally managed to get his son's attention by grabbing both his arms and lightly shaking him.
"Ryan didn't want me here, so we're gonna call Kirsten and tell her we're spending the night. We'll stay at a hotel and come back in the morning. Ok? We'll get him back. I promise you that."
Seth whimpered and lowered his head, and Sandy heard him sob. He hugged his son as tightly as he could. For once, Seth didn't protest against his father's show of affection.
"Shh... It'll be ok, Seth. Don't worry about it. It'll be ok..."
It was amazing how Sandy always managed to regain control when the situation called for it.
----------------------Flashback--------------------------------
Dawn sat by Ryan's bed and watched his sleeping form. She watched how he frowned, an unpleasant dream bothering his subconscious. She saw the bruises, even more accentuated in the moonlight, and cried as she held his hand.
She never meant for her stupid boyfriends to hurt him. She never wanted that. He was her baby. Her special kid. Ryan was smarter than her, and she knew it. She just didn't let him show it, because then he would embarrass her, and no matter how great a kid he was, she was still his elder, and he shouldn't disrespect his elders.
"No..."
She started at the sound of his voice. His breathing quickened, and he moved around a little. She touched his head, passing her hand over his soft hair. Ryan had always had softer hair than Trey. Trey's hair was coarse and wiry. The color was ugly too. Almost red. Ryan's hair was delicate and silky. It was a beautiful sandy blonde color.
When Ryan was around four, he was absolutely perfect. People stopped Dawn on the street and told her what a sweetheart he was. Ryan would smile at them.
"How are you today?" he would ask, his icy blue eyes visible with his good haircut.
"Well, you're just too cute!" they would say, and pinch his cheek gently. He would giggle and smile.
"You're so lucky!" they would say, looking down at the little boy dressed in blue denim overalls and a small white tank top. "He's just the sweetest, most polite boy I've ever seen! You better hide your little girl, Sylvia!" They would all laugh and joke while cooing over her little boy. Her sweet little boy.
And Trey would scowl and kick the ground, unhappy about the attention feasted on his little brother. Trey was rude and mean and disrespectful. He would get hit by his father whenever he talked back, which was often. And Ryan would keep on sleeping peacefully. Until one day he woke up and saw his father smack Trey across the face. He jumped to help the big brother he respected so dearly and told his father to leave him alone.
And Ryan wasn't perfect anymore.
He was bruised and battered, and it was all her fault. She cried, and tears fell onto his smooth hand. His skin used to be perfect as well. He used to smell fresh and clean. Now, every few inches, she would find another bump or ripple. Another dent or cut. His hands were still perfect, though. He never defended himself. She had made him think that he deserved the beatings.
One day, she overheard Ryan talking to his friend, Theresa. Theresa told him that his parents weren't supposed to hit him. Ryan had gone home and talked back to his father. Dave had hit him as hard as he could, and Ryan had fought back. She had done all she could to keep her drunk asshole of a husband from killing her baby boy, but that was how Ryan had first ended up in the hospital.
"Mom?"
He was talking in his sleep again. It must have been those percocets they gave him for the pain. She pet his head. She didn't know exactly how long he'd stay mad at her this time, but it couldn't be that long. I mean, she had dumped Rob that afternoon, with Ryan watching from the couch.
She knew it wasn't fair that in his short life, he must have been to the hospital more than five times. She knew it wasn't fair that the kind Dr. Murray kept on paying their medical bills, for reasons untold to Ryan. Ryan didn't even know that Dr. Murray was paying the bills. She wouldn't destroy his pride like that.
Ryan coughed weakly and groaned before settling into a deeper sleep, his frown finally turning into a small smile. She kissed his forehead and closed the door.
Her baby was perfect.
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To Be Continued...
Ok. That was actually quite a long chapter. I'm oh so proud of myself. Please review if you wish to!