Okay, so my building was evacuated at midnight last night because of a power outage, and then we weren't let back in until 5:30 in the morning!! Isn't that crazy?!? When the power goes out at my house I don't evacuate into the streets! All of the dorms pretty much were without power, so there's like 3,000 kids in pajamas just chilling on the street. Oh, and my lovely school expected us to go to class the next morning. Jerks. It was crazy, and needless to say, I'm completely exhausted now. Sorry for my rant, but man, it sucked big time and I needed to vent. But I finished this (yay!) and if it's bad, I can just blame the lack of sleep. Please, let me know how you liked it!

Disclaimer: I don't so much own the characters. But I'd gladly take them if you're offering?

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It was Kirsten who finally drove down to Chino to see for herself what was going on. She didn't tell Sandy where she was going, she left after work and using the GPS navigator in her car (one of its selling points in her opinion. Two things that she couldn't do: cook and navigate) she made it to Chino without getting too lost. She knew that if Sandy knew she was going to go down there, he would have insisted that she let him handle it. He would have insisted that she let him come with her at least. He would have told her that it was unsafe for her to be in Chino by herself. But, she wanted to argue, it was perfectly okay for Ryan to be down in Chino. It was hypocritical, and she was the first to admit that she was guilty of this as well. She wanted to kill Seth for going down to Chino without telling her or Sandy first, but the thought that it was unsafe didn't cross her mind when telling Ryan he could choose to go back there. Well, actually the thought his parents are unsafe was more prevalent in her mind than the neighborhood was dangerous. She turned off the car when she got to the address on the little card that Dave and Dawn had left for the Cohens. Dave had assured her that he wanted Ryan to keep a relationship with her and Sandy, and of course, Seth.

"Can't deny a kid a best friend, right?" Dave had said smiling at Seth. Kirsten had smiled and nodded, all the while thinking that he was now denying Seth a brother, denying her and Sandy another son. She sighed again and sat trying to summon the courage when the phone rang startling her. She fumbled for it, and saw on the caller ID that it was Sandy.

"Hello?" She answered.

"Hi honey, I was just wondering what time you were going to be home for dinner?" Kirsten bit her lip. It was time to tell him where she was. After all, what was done was done. He couldn't stop her now, she was already down there.

"Well, I might be a little late," she told him.

"Oh. Okay, are you still at the office?" Sandy asked.

"Not exactly," Kirsten replied.

"Not exactly?"

"Well, I'm in Chino." There was a fumble on the other end, and Kirsten was sure that Sandy had just dropped the phone.

"You're where?"

"I'm in Chino," she repeated.

"Kirsten! What are you doing there by yourself?"

"I wanted to see Ryan. I wanted to check up on him." Sandy knew that she didn't quite trust him to keep an eye on the situation. She didn't quite believe that Sandy couldn't exactly live up to his promise, and so she had gone to see for herself. But it wasn't safe there for her. Kirsten could claim that she was not as sheltered as everyone thought she was. She could argue that she lived in a mail truck for a summer, and that she had survived on her own during college, but the truth was that college had been a long time before, and even then she always had the option of running home. And the mail truck had nothing to do with Kirsten being able to take care of herself in a neighborhood like Ryan's. To say that he was worried was an understatement, Sandy's heart had skipped a beat when she had told him this. He actually thought that Seth could take care of himself better in Chino than Kirsten could. She was a beautiful, naïve woman completely out of her element. It terrified him.

"Honey, I would have gone down with you," Sandy said.

"I know that. I wanted to come alone."

"But honey...."

"Sandy, I'm fine, okay? I'll call you when I'm on my way home."

"Kirsten. Be careful, okay? I mean really careful."

"I will." Sandy glanced at the clock on his desk. It was already going on seven. "I'm going to go now."

"I love you," Sandy said before she had a chance to hang up.

"I love you too," she told him. "And I'm okay. I'm just going to check up on Ryan, see if he's really okay and then come home. I promise." With that, he heard a click and she was gone.

Kirsten had known that would be Sandy's reaction. She could do this. It was fine, Chino was just another neighborhood. She gathered her purse from the seat next to her and with the adrenaline from her conversation with Sandy, she got out of the car and marched her way to the front door. She would show Sandy she could do this. Screw Sandy's waiting and keeping an eye on the whole thing plan, screw child services who had so easily transferred guardianship back over to Dawn. Kirsten was going in there, and if Ryan was being abused again and Dawn was drinking, than she was going to pull all the strings she could to get him out of there.

And one thing that Kirsten Nichol Cohen knew how to do, it was pull strings to get what she wanted. It was a skill inherited directly from her father.

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The last person that Dawn Atwood thought would be at her door was Kirsten Cohen. But there she was, standing on her front porch, looking nervous and completely out of place.

"Hi," Kirsten said when Dawn came to the door. "Is Ryan here?"

"No," Dawn said and she was about to close the door, when she realized that Ryan not being there wouldn't make Kirsten leave.

"Well, where is he?"

"How should I know? Like the kid tells me anything." It was then that Kirsten realized that Dawn had been drinking. She could smell the alcohol on Dawn's breath.

"Could I wait for him to get back?" Kirsten asked.

"I don't care," Dawn said shrugging. She moved away from the door, but she left it open, and Kirsten took that as a sign that she was allowed to come in. She stepped inside the small house and noticed right away there were a few broken glasses around.

"Sorry about the mess," Dawn said when she spotted Kirsten's eye sweeping over the living room and taking it all in. "I dropped a few glasses and didn't have time yet to clean it up." Kirsten just nodded, and didn't say anything. "Sit down." Kirsten looked at the sunken couch and resisted the urge to take out napkins and sit them down before sitting herself. It wasn't that she was a snob, or at least, she liked to think that she wasn't, but there were stains, large and odorous on the couch. She found the least stained cushion and sat down.

"So how are you? Do you like having Ryan back?" Kirsten was the queen of small talk. She had been taught well by her mother, and was able to communicate even with the most awful and petty of Newpsies without wanting to kill them or herself, and she was fairly confident that she and Dawn could have a normal conversation.

"It's great," Dawn said and Kirsten wasn't completely sure if the comment was meant honestly or had a sarcastic undertone to it.

"We miss him," Kirsten said. She hadn't meant to say that, but then once it was out, she didn't particularly want to take it back either.

"Oh?" Dawn raised an eyebrow at this. "I would think that you would be happy to have him out of your hair." This time it was Kirsten's turn to raise the eyebrow.

"No, we loved having him. Seth, my son, misses him the most. He has only his father and me to ramble on to, and Seth enjoys a much bigger audience." It was true, Seth was a lot quieter once Ryan had gone. Maybe it was because he missed Ryan and withdrawing was his way of dealing, or maybe it was because Ryan had been the link between Seth and his parents. Ryan had helped Seth understand Kirsten and Sandy better, and in turn Kirsten and Sandy understood Seth better. And Kirsten wasn't sure which scenario she was more afraid of. Was Seth withdrawing just from them? Or from everyone? She wanted to call Summer and ask her, but she knew that Seth would kill her if she called his girlfriend. Sandy wasn't very much help either, and Kirsten felt like her family was falling apart and the only one who could fix it had voluntarily left their house and now was too afraid to come back.

Kirsten was saved from more small talk with Dawn when the door opened and Ryan came in.

"Kirsten?" She smiled and stood up and wrapped her arms around him. He had lost weight, and she felt him flinch involuntarily when she had squeezed him. "What are you doing here? Is Sandy here?"

"No, I came alone." Ryan's eyes widened.

"You came alone?" He repeated. "Kirsten, you shouldn't have come here alone. It's not safe for you to be here alone." Kirsten sighed in frustration. What was with the men in her life thinking that she couldn't take care of herself? Although, it was nice to know that Ryan was so protective of her. He was only protective over those that he really cared about. It was sort of a backhanded compliment.

"I wanted to see how you were," she told him, and gave him a look that told him that she knew more than he thought that she knew.

"I'm fine," Ryan assured her. "I'm all settled in." But he could see that Kirsten wasn't buying it. And he pulled down the sleeve to his shirt to hide the latest batch of bruises.

"What happened to your eye?" She asked taking his face in her hand and tilting it so that she could study it.

"Some guys at school," Dawn broke in. "I called the school, but they said there was nothing that they could do." She was lying too, but Kirsten guessed that over the years both Dawn and Ryan had become awfully good at lying. It came naturally now. In a low voice, so that Dawn couldn't hear, Kirsten whispered into Ryan's ear,

"You can always come home." Home, Ryan thought, this is home now. But how he wanted to take Kirsten up on that offer, how he wanted to run back into his tiny bedroom and start throwing things into a suitcase and tell Kirsten everything. How his father was hitting him again, how his mother was drinking, and how he hid out at Theresa's house every night. Just like old times.

But he couldn't.

There was a loyalty there to his parents that he just couldn't break. He wished that he could, he knew that this wasn't right. That his father shouldn't be using him as a punching bag, and that his mother shouldn't be drinking. The problem with living with the Cohens had been that he had seen that not all mothers drink themselves into oblivion, and not all fathers take out their frustrations on their sons. And not all sons are afraid to talk back to their parents. Seth was a prime example of this, Ryan thought that sometimes Sandy and Kirsten didn't know whether to scream or to laugh at Seth.

"What did you say to him?" Dawn's voice was harsh and Kirsten nearly flinched as if she had been struck by something.

"Nothing Mom," Ryan said turning around quickly. "You should go Kirsten."

"I said that we missed him," Kirsten said defiantly, sticking her hands on her hips.

"You should go," Ryan repeated again.

"Well, if that's all that you said, why did you whisper it?" Dawn's eyes narrowed into little slits and for the first time Kirsten felt her reserve start to falter. How did Ryan live with this woman? How could he choose to come back here? To come back to her?

"Mom, please, that's what she said. Kirsten, go," Ryan said a little more forcefully this time.

"What the hell is all that noise?" A voice came from the little hallway and Kirsten realized that Dave was also home. He appeared in the doorway, and Kirsten shifted her weight nervously and clutched onto the shoulder strap of her purse. She didn't know why Dave made her so uncomfortable, well, she knew why, he was a felon, but he was still Ryan's father, and he had been so nice when he had come to dinner. But there was nothing nice about him now. She realized that the broken glass had to have happened today while Ryan was at school, or else he would have cleaned it up already. The kid was notorious for being neat and tidy. "What is she doing here?" The question was directed at Ryan and not Kirsten, but she answered anyway.

"I just wanted to see Ryan and check up on him," she replied.

"He's fine. Didn't you believe that we could take care of him ourselves? He doesn't need you!" It was a far cry from the Dave that assured Kirsten that he would make sure that Ryan maintained contact with them. Dave strode forward toward Kirsten, and before Ryan could step in the way, he had grabbed her upper arm and was dragging her towards the door.

"Let go of her!" Ryan said quietly. Ryan could see that Kirsten was in pain; he knew too well the strength that his father possessed. Her arm would be black and blue.

"What did you say?" Dave turned to face Ryan, his grip never faltering on Kirsten. She could smell the alcohol on Dave's breath and remembered Ryan telling her once, in a rare moment of confidence, that Dave got meaner the drunker he got.

"Not that he couldn't be mean when he was sober," Ryan had said. "But when he was sober, he could be so charming. You know? Like you would think that he was this great guy, and then he'd turn on you, like that." Ryan snapped to prove his point. Was that all it was back at their house and in Sandy's office? Dave being charming? Winning them all over, including Ryan? Her arm was pulsing in pain, and she wanted to be anywhere but there right then. She wanted Ryan to be anywhere but there as well.

"I said let go of her," Ryan repeated louder this time.

"Fine," Dave sneered and threw Kirsten to the floor. She fell with a thud and Ryan hurried over to her to help her up.

"You need to leave," he said as he picked her up. She was rubbing her hipbone, which she had fallen on.

"Not without you," she told him. "Go grab some of your things, we're leaving." Kirsten couldn't just leave him there. If it had been Seth, there was no way that she would leave him alone with this man, and she would be damned if she was going to let Ryan stay. Not after this.

"Kirsten..." Ryan tried.

"Why are you still here?" Dave asked coming back over to where Ryan was pleading with Kirsten to leave.

"She's leaving Dad," Ryan said.

"Ryan's coming with me," Kirsten said placing her hand on his arm gently.

"No," this came from Dawn, who had been quiet since Dave had come out. "He's our son. He's staying here." Kirsten was intelligent, and her common sense was telling her to run out of that house and not look back. Her common sense was telling her to go out to her car, and call Sandy and have him come down to help her, maybe call the police. But how long would it take Sandy to get there? How long for the police to get there?

And how much damage could be done in that amount of time?

Instead of running, she made up her mind to stay, slipped her hand unseen into her purse, and summoning all of her courage and turned to Dawn.

"No, he's not."

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Okay, so I know I left it with a cliffhanger, but I was good about updating this time, so that has to count as something right? Right? All right ,well, what do you think of this chapter? Please let me know.