Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to The O.C..

Author's Notes: The African-American student is an original character. This story is not a future fic. It takes place during season 1.

Chapter 1

During Ryan's first week of school at Harbor High, he was busy dealing with Marissa and Luke, and trying out for soccer, and handling all of the drama associated with everything that happened that week.

But he wasn't too busy to notice another guy in his pre-calculus class with Mr. Schmidt who also seemed to be getting shunned by the other students in the class. The reason was obvious: he was black in an almost entirely white private prep school. Ryan guessed besides that, he was probably also new to the school. The double whammy. Ryan saw him at lunch several days that week. He was always eating alone. The only other student that Ryan saw the kid with all week was a younger black girl who looked to be his sister. He saw them walking together towards the parking lot after school one day.

Ryan sat by himself in pre-calc during that week. He didn't know anybody else in the class. Seth, for example, was taking regular calculus this year, having taken pre-calc last year. Ryan noticed that the black guy also sat by himself every day. He found it somewhat amusing that the entire week, the other students in the class avoided sitting at his table or the black kid's table until all of the other tables were full. At which point they were forced to sit at one of those two tables.

On the Monday of the second week of school, Ryan decided to make friends with this kid. Ryan knew what it was like to be new in a school where you didn't know anyone. Well, of course, Ryan knew a few people at Harbor and was friends with Seth and Marissa and Anna, but that was pretty much it. And he could always use a another friend.

So at the start of class, Ryan waited until the guy was sitting down in his usual place, then went over.

"Hey."

The kid looked up at Ryan, looking a little confused. "Hey."

"Mind if I sit here?" Ryan indicated the chair next to the kid.

The kid shrugged, so Ryan took that as a yes and sat down.

"I'm Ryan."

"Sam."

As the class filled up with the rest of the students, Ryan leaned towards Sam and whispered, "Watch, we'll have this table to ourselves."

Sam gave Ryan a little smile and went back to getting his books and papers ready for class. As expected, the other students filled up the rest of the tables and Ryan and Sam were left by themselves. Right before class started, Ryan tried to catch Sam's eye to give him an I told you so look, but Sam wasn't looking at him.

After class, Ryan wanted to invite Sam to join him for lunch, which they both had next, but Sam rushed off before Ryan got the chance. While he was eating with Seth and Anna, Ryan looked for Sam, wanting to invite him over, but unfortunately he didn't see him.

Ryan stopped on his way out to look for Sam one last time and spotted him eating alone in the corner. Seth was right behind him and almost ran into him.

"Dude, watch out."

"Sorry." Ryan's eyes didn't leave Sam.

Seth turned in the direction that Ryan was looking. "What are you looking at?"

"Seth, do you know that guy over there?" Ryan pointed towards Sam.

"Who? You mean the black guy?"

"Yeah."

Seth didn't hesitate. "Nah. Must be new."

"He's in my pre-calc class. Says his name is Sam."

"You met him?"

"Yeah. I was thinking of asking him to eat lunch with us."

Seth looked back over at Sam. "Sure. I mean, why not?"

Ryan nodded at Seth, and they headed off to their respective classes.

The next day, Ryan again sat with Sam in pre-calc. Unfortunately, they didn't have any other classes together, other than lunch, which really doesn't count as a class. This time, Ryan sat down at his table without asking and was glad to see that Sam looked at him and gave him a little smile and a nod. Maybe Sam was getting a little more comfortable having Ryan sit with him. Ryan decided to ask about lunch now instead of waiting until the end of class.

"Hey, um..."

Sam looked over at Ryan.

"You have lunch right after this, right?" As if Ryan didn't know that already, but he needed something to break the ice.

"Yeah?" Sam sounded uncertain about why Ryan was asking.

"I was wondering if you would like to sit with me, you know, and my friends, at our table, uh, you know, if you want..."

Ryan groaned inwardly. He really wasn't so good with the words. He was trying to find a way to say it without sounding like he was asking Sam out on a date or something. But he also didn't want to scare him off by saying that there would be a whole group of people there that Sam didn't know.

Sam looked at Ryan for a long moment. Ryan wished he could read minds to know what Sam was thinking. "Your friends wouldn't mind?"

Ryan shook his head. "Nah. No way. They're cool."

Sam nodded, thoughtfully. "OK. Sure. Why not?"

"Great."

Mr. Schmidt started class at that point, preventing any further conversation.

During class, Sam snuck a glance at Ryan. They had the table to themselves again today, just like Ryan predicted yesterday. Sam expected that it would be this way all year.

Sam wasn't so sure what to make of Ryan. He was the first one who'd tried to make friends with him since school started last week. Sam himself wasn't going out of his way to try and make friends at this new school. He was content to go through school by himself. Although he had to admit, to himself at least, that having friends would be nice.

The fact that Ryan was white didn't bother him. After all, Harbor was like 99 percent white. OK, maybe that was a little bit of an exaggeration, but sometimes it seemed that way. And Sam was used to it anyway, having lived in Newport his entire life. He already wished sometimes that he'd stayed at Newport Union High. But he couldn't let his little sister Angela come here alone -- she was just a freshman.

Sam took another look at Ryan. He looked like he was concentrating on trying to follow what the teacher was saying.

Sam wasn't blind. He'd also seen Ryan sitting by himself in pre-calc, being avoided by the other students. So he wasn't really surprised when Ryan came over the previous day and started sitting at his table with him. He wondered what Ryan's story was. Well, maybe he'd find out at lunch. Sam hoped that there wasn't a large number of Ryan's friends there. He didn't really do well, meeting lots of people all at once.

Sam sighed and went back to trying to pay attention to the teacher.

Sam was glad when class finally ended. Mr. Schmidt could be pretty boring at times, already. Sam stood up and started packing up his stuff and saw Ryan doing the same thing. He saw Ryan look at him, take a deep breath, and say, "Ready?"

Sam picked up his bookbag and nodded at Ryan. "Let's go."

Sam followed Ryan out of the classroom and towards the cafeteria.

To Be Continued