All good things must come to an end. But there may be an epilogue.

Oh, and I know this is a bit of a standard cop-out on the Theresa front – but this isn't her story, really. And it had to happen.

Thank you to my lovely reviewers – you know who you are, and you are too kind. Please keep on reviewing.

DISCLAIMER: Fox's property. Or Josh's. Or both. Please don't sue me.

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Chapter 4: The end of the affair

Ryan was working up some scaffolding on the site on a sweltering July afternoon, teeth gritted as he tried to focus on the work at hand and ignore the fact that he was twenty feet up in the air when his foreman called him down. A phone call, apparently. Ryan was happy to get back on the ground but felt apprehension knotting his stomach as he walked toward the site office. No one ever called him at work. It couldn't be a good sign.

"Ryan?" He was shocked when he recognised the voice. What the fuck was she doing calling him at work?

"Julie? What's up?" he snapped.

"There's... Ryan, I don't know how to tell you this, but Theresa's been in an accident." She sounded awful. Like she'd been crying. Ryan felt the blood drain from his face.

"What?" He bit back the urge to shout, forced his voice to stay calm. "Is she okay? How bad is it?"

"She was in a car crash. She's... she's all right, I guess. No major injury as far as I know. But..." Julie faltered.

Ryan closed his eyes. He knew what was coming: "It's the baby, isn't it?"

She didn't answer and he felt his heart lurch. For a second, he relaxed his grip and let a cascade of emotions wash through him. Grief for the child who never would be. Pity for Theresa who had to deal with the loss. And relief, goddamn relief at the thought that he wasn't going to be a father just yet. That in turn led to a surge of guilt. How dare he feel relief when Theresa was going through hell? He tried to pull himself back together, focus on the moment.

At that point, Ryan realised what had been bothering him since the start of the conversation.

"Julie – why are you the one telling me this?" he asked abruptly. "What have you got to do with this situation?"

He was met with silence. Julie sighed. Evidently it was proving hard to explain. Suddenly Ryan felt a chill. It could only be Marissa, he thought. But how?

"Ryan, I don't know how to tell you this but... Theresa was in Marissa's car, "Julie finally ventured. "Marissa was driving. And, oh Ryan, she'd been drinking. I'm so sorry."

Ryan was confused: "Marissa? I thought she was still in rehab?"

"She was in Newport for a home visit. I didn't know she was still drinking – she's supposed to be making real progress. And she wasn't allowed to take the car. I don't really know what happened. I think she was giving Theresa a lift. I..." She hesitated again. "I don't think it was deliberate. It was an accident Ryan, an accident."

An accident. Marissa caused Theresa to have a miscarriage and it was an accident. He didn't know what to make of it, what to believe. Having Julie fill him in on the details was too surreal – all these women whom he'd slept with tangled together in an obscene web. He felt nauseous, all of a sudden.

"How is she? Marissa I mean," he asked quietly.

"Okay. Concussed. Confused. It wasn't a very bad crash. Just enough... Really, I'm so sorry." Julie sounded sincere and distraught. Unsurprisingly, they hadn't talked about Marissa at all during their clandestine encounters, and Ryan had only been hearing occasional news about her through the Cohens. But he knew her daughter's plight was upsetting Julie more than she ever let on, especially since the two had been virtually estranged for months now. Marissa, though, was secondary. He needed to focus on Theresa, who would need as much support as she could get. And fast.

He thanked Julie and mumbled something about getting hold of Theresa's mom as he hung up. He was at a loss as to how to deal with the miscarriage – but he expected Theresa to want him by her side as soon as possible.

On the way to HOAG, Ryan called Kirsten on her cell. He figured he owed the Cohens as much, plus it could only be a good thing to have her on his side when dealing with Newport doctors. She assured him she'd be there when they arrived. She was, and Ryan felt an acute pang of homesickness when she enfolded him in her arms for a quick hug in the ER waiting room. Julie was there too, looking like she'd been through hell. They exchanged a quick nod as he went in to Theresa.

As it turned out, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Marissa's car had crashed into a wall when she swerved to avoid a truck after failing to stop at a stop sign. The passenger side of the car had taken the brunt of the impact, but because it had been a low-speed crash, Theresa was relatively unscathed. Bruises, bumps, a few scratches and a sprained wrist. Ryan, who'd been bracing himself for the sight of her as he walked into her room, allowed himself to relax a little. She was looking like she'd been beaten up again, and her wrist was bandaged. On the whole, considering the car was totalled, she wasn't bad. He'd seen worse. But he knew the real damage was below the surface – he could read it in her eyes.

"Hey, Theresa, how are you doing," he said softly.

"Okay. I guess. In shock. You...you've heard about?" She couldn't bring herself to say it.

"Yeah, I have," he murmured. "I'm sorry, Theresa, I'm so sorry". And he was sorry, really sorry. The relief – well, he didn't want to admit to that now and risk upsetting her further. He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed.

"I'm sorry too, Ryan. It hurts. And not just physically." She started crying. Ryan put his arm around her. He felt awkward.

"Your mom's here. Do you want to see her?"

"No," she whispered, "Not yet. Just you, now."

They sat in silence as she cried quietly on his shoulder. Ryan wasn't quite sure what to do except hug her. And hope she would stop crying because it made him feel terrible. He'd never been any good with crying women. After what seemed like an eternity, the tears stopped.

"You know the worst, Ry?" she said, her voice muffled into his neck. "I'm really sad about the baby. But I'm also, I don't know..." She hesitated.

"Relieved?" suggested Ryan tentatively. He hoped like hell he'd guessed correctly because otherwise – well, he dreaded to think how she'd receive his words.

Theresa nodded, sniffing. "And I feel so bad about that, so guilty..." She looked at him then, dark eyes full of worry and pain. He hushed her and drew her tighter into his arms. "It's not your fault, baby," he murmured. "Don't feel bad... I understand..." He rocked her in his arms, cheek pressed against her hair. His mind was in turmoil – one part of him desperate to grieve with her for the baby they'd never have, the other embracing the thought that it was for the best, and that it never would have worked for them.

Eventually she sighed and pulled away. "Let's not talk about this right now, Ry. It's going to take me a little time to get used to it, I guess." He took her hand in his and stroked it lightly with his thumb.

"So tell me then. What exactly happened?" he said. He was curious – and a little apprehensive – about how the pair had ended up in the same car. And again, guilty, because he was the one who'd brought them together in the first place.

Theresa shrugged. "I was in town during my break, window-shopping. You know, looking at the latest fashion and the stupid prices Newport chicks pay for them... She just walked out of one of the shops and said hi, and we got talking, kind of. And then I was running late and she said she'd drive me back. I didn't know she'd been drinking Ryan, I swear."

"Do you remember the accident?"

"I think she missed a stop sign and she was going to sail across the road," she replied, "and then this truck was coming so she swerved. We hit a wall. I don't really recall the details. It's kind of blurred..."

That easy, he thought. A missed stop sign, a truck, a swerve of the steering wheel. And suddenly everything was different.

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After the accident, his life changed again.

He didn't want to leave Theresa immediately but after a week or so, when the Cohens suggested he might want to consider returning home, he let himself be swayed. Eventually, he gave in to their combined assault.

Sandy and Kirsten had made it clear they fully expected him back before the start of the school year, and were badgering him about having a proper break before the start of term. Sandy had already told him bluntly that time was running out and he should pack up and come home now. Kirsten, ever the subtle one, had merely remarked that breakfasts weren't the same without him, and that she missed his cooking.

And Seth, who'd returned home sheepishly after his sailing jaunt when his money ran out; Seth, who was grounded until school started again, and then some; Seth, who'd been sporadically emailing him for the past few weeks before the accident in an attempt to make up for being such a jerk – Seth was now calling him every day to find out when he'd be returning to the poolhouse.

Even Theresa was unwilling to see him waste time in Chino when he could be back in Newport with his family. Her words. She was resilient, she said, and she hated seeing him torn between his duty and his heart's desire.

"It's not like you'll never see me, Ry," she told him. "But you've done enough for me.. More than enough. From now on I can look after myself. Like I've always done, okay? Remember, I'm not one of those prissy Newport princesses Ryan. And I really don't want to fuck up your life. Now piss off home before you make me feel even guiltier than I already am about this whole thing. "

So he stopped fighting it. After a couple of months back in Chino, he was damn sure he didn't want to spend the rest of his life there if he could avoid it. He went with the flow.

Home. He was going home.

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Ryan met Julie one last time at the motel, after calling her for the first and only time. He didn't enquire about Marissa – he knew she was back in rehab, somewhere different that time. Stricter, he imagined. They must've plea-bargained something. But now wasn't the time to start talking about her, or her pivotal role in the break-up of their liaison, not to mention in shaping his future life. That headfuck he saved for when he was alone and, preferably, drunk. Now was the time to say goodbye.

What happened in Chino had to stay in Chino. They both knew it was out of the question that they could carry on their affair in Newport. They didn't even need to discuss it, or the fact that it had to remain a secret between them. That was a given.

As for the awkwardness that would come when they met again at society dos, or family gatherings – well, they were adults. Or almost. They were used to keeping secrets. They could handle it.

It was a bittersweet meeting. They both knew this was a goodbye fuck, and there was an urgency to it that had them stumbling all over each other on the way to the bed, panting and tearing at clothing in their haste, but the sex ended up unexpectedly tender, as if they were finally willing to let their guard down, this one last time...

After, when they were both spent, they lay in bed together in each other's arms – something they'd conspicuously failed to do in the past – and contemplated their future.

"So, back to being enemies?" she joked.

"I guess," shrugged Ryan. He looked up at her slyly. "Although since you're like, my grandma now, I'm not sure how that's going to work out."

"Don't say grandma!" Julie cried in mock horror.

And don't mention Marissa, thought Ryan. Or Caleb. Or Jimmy. Or Kirsten and Sandy. Because nobody, but nobody would understand what had happened there. Christ, he barely knew how it had come about.

But as they walked out of the motel room together, and Ryan kissed Julie for the last time before getting his bike out of the boot of her car, it struck him that he was really going to miss those moments they had. And that Chino would've been a hell of a lot worse had it not been for her.

Julie had been the highlight of his summer. Now that was weird.

(Tbc because Ryan and Julie deserve an epilogue of sorts.)