Sorry this one took a little longer, this was the first home football game for my school and so that meant plenty of drunken debauchery all weekend. Haha, I think my liver and I are still recovering. Anyway, please review and let me know what you think and if you still like it. By the way, if I could I would give each and every one of you a cookie, alas I cannot. But you do have my undying gratitude, and that's something, right?

Disclaimer: The characters, once again, are not mine.

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Sandy rushed into the hospital after the cops.

"We'll check for you, wait here," the one said. Sandy hated to wait. He wanted to run through the rooms checking for his wife and Ryan. He wanted to see them, and hold them and make sure that they were both okay.

"Sir, there was a Kirsten Cohen and a Ryan Atwood brought in, they can take you back to see Ryan right now," Officer Wesley, Sandy had learned his name, told him.

"Is he okay? What about Kirsten?" Sandy asked. Wesley shrugged.

"Sorry, I don't know about your wife, but the doctor said the kid is going to be fine. A broken wrist and a mild concussion and some stitches," Wesley said. "Come on back and see him for yourself." Sandy didn't know how he got his feet moving, but he managed to follow Wesley back to Ryan's room. Ryan's eyes were closed, but Sandy knew that he was awake still. His arm had already been placed in the cast and he had a bandage on his forehead. He opened one eye when Sandy came in and Sandy smiled at him.

"Hey kid," he said. "How are you doing?"

"I'm so sorry, Sandy," Ryan said. "I tried to get her to leave, but she wouldn't. It's my fault."

"No it's not kiddo, she stayed because she loves you, she stayed because she wanted you out of that house," Sandy said.

"But that's my fault," Ryan argued. "Because I went back in the first place, and because I wouldn't leave the first time she asked." He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, and Sandy thought he might be fighting the urge to cry. He knew that he was certainly fighting the urge to cry. How had this happened? And where was Kirsten? "Is she okay? Kirsten, I mean?"

"I don't know, they haven't told me anything yet, what happened?" Sandy held his breath. Please have it not be bad, he thought. Ryan was okay. A broken wrist, some stitches, nothing too serious. Kirsten probably was the same way.

"My dad, he had her, and when I tried to get him to let her go, she fell, and she hit her head off the coffee table and blacked out," Ryan said. Sandy let out the breath that he had been holding. That was it. She just hit her head. A concussion, but nothing too serious. Nothing life threatening. "But then, my dad, he doesn't....he was drunk Sandy, and he was pissed off."

"At you?"

"More at her," Ryan said. "He screamed at her to leave...and she wouldn't." God, Kirsten, Sandy thought. Why are you so damned stubborn? But he didn't stop Ryan from talking. It was as if floodgates had opened and words just came spilling out of his mouth. "So then he kept kicking her, a few times. Dawn, she screamed for him to stop, but he was just so angry at her. And Kirsten couldn't defend herself, and I tried, Sandy, but he kept throwing me off, and Dawn grabbed my arm to keep me from getting my dad angrier. I tried so hard to get to her and make him stop." Ryan shook the image of Kirsten on the ground, her head bleeding and her arm already bruising, and his father standing over her. He could still feel his mother's death grip on his arm as he tried to pull away to help Kirsten, and he could remember crawling across the floor to get to her once his parents heard the sirens and ran. He had pulled her into his arms.

"Kirsten, wake up," he had begged. Her breathing had been shallow and Ryan had wondered how hard his father had kicked her and if there was any serious internal damage. And the thought that Sandy was going to kill him for letting her get hurt kept running through his head. He had gotten Kirsten hurt. It was his fault.

"It's not your fault kid," Sandy said, almost reading Ryan's mind.

"I couldn't get Dawn to let me go, and I couldn't stop my father. He kept kicking her Sandy. She was helpless, and he kept kicking her." Talk about kicking someone when they're down, Ryan thought bitterly. How could his father hurt her? She was a woman. She had done nothing wrong. He felt like he was going to be sick, and he motioned for Sandy to hand him a bucket and then he began throwing up.

"Mr. Cohen?" A voice behind him said. Sandy turned around.

"Yes?"

"I'm Dr. Harris, I've been treating your wife."

"How is she? Where is she?"

"Why don't we step outside?"

"I want to hear," Ryan said lying back against his pillows. Sandy shrugged.

"I'm just going to come back in here and tell him anyway," he told the doctor. The doctor looked at Ryan warily and then finally nodded.

"Your wife has suffered a concussion, we aren't sure of how severe yet, and won't be until she wakes up." Wakes up? Why wasn't she awake now? Sandy wanted to yell, but instead, he kept his mouth shut and nodded. "And she broke a few ribs and one of those ribs punctured her spleen. We've taken her up to surgery to remove the spleen and control the internal bleeding. That's where she still is. If you would like I can take you to the surgery waiting room?" Sandy felt numb, and couldn't form an answer to the doctor's question. The words swam around in his head. But she would be okay. She had to be okay.

"Go ahead Sandy," Ryan's voice broke him out of his thoughts. "Kirsten needs you more than I do." Ryan felt incredibly guilty. Kirsten was in surgery, and it was his fault. It had happened because he couldn't stop his father. He had failed her.

"No, I can...I'll call Seth and Caleb and have them come down and sit with you until you get released and then you can come up with me?" Sandy finally wrapped his head around what the doctor had said. Why hadn't he stopped her somehow? He knew it was almost impossible, that once Kirsten got something in her head, it was very hard to talk her out of it. But why hadn't he done a better job of convincing her? Why hadn't he headed towards Chino the second he found out that she was there trying to get Ryan to come home? He could have possibly prevented this. He could have done something, anything.

Sandy had never felt so helpless and so guilty at the same time. He had failed Ryan by not controlling the situation and by letting Dave and Dawn take him back, and he had failed Kirsten.

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Seth had answered the phone on the first ring. He and Summer hadn't been talking, they were now just sitting on the back patio watching the ocean. Summer was doing her best to keep him calm and thinking about something other than his mother and Ryan. But as soon as the phone rang, Seth dove for it.

"Hello?" Summer sat up and listened to his side of the conversation. From what she could tell already, it wasn't good. "Are they okay? Is she going to be okay? What did the doctor say? When's Ryan getting released? Okay. Okay. No, Summer is here, we can come down. Okay. I'll see you then. I love you too Dad." Seth hung up and was silent for a minute.

"What's the matter? Seth? What happened?" Summer said.

"We need to get to the hospital in Chino," Seth said. "Ryan broke his wrist and has a mild concussion." Seth felt sick. Who could do that to his son? Who could break his son's wrist? Who could break a woman's ribs and not even blink? Seth just couldn't understand what kind of a person did that.

"And your mom?" Summer was growing impatient. Seth was in some state of shock, and not talking, which meant that it was bad. It also made Summer want to know what had happened even more.

"She's in surgery. Dave broke her ribs and one punctured her spleen."

"Oh God, Cohen..."

"Can we go down there? Can you drive me down there?"

"Sure, let's go." Summer grabbed her purse and her car keys and they headed out towards where her car was parked in the driveway. Just as they had gotten in and were pulling out, Marissa came running out of her house.

"Summer! Seth!" She yelled. Summer stopped. "Are you going to the hospital? Can I come?"

"How did you know?" Seth asked as Marissa jumped in and Summer pulled out completely.

"Your dad just called Caleb and he was over our house picking up my mom for dinner. He wouldn't let me come with them, but I saw your car and figured that's where you guys were going."

"Is Grandpa mad?" Seth asked. He could envision his grandfather yelling and screaming into the phone at his father that it was his fault, that this had happened because Sandy had brought home that juvenile delinquent. That he had told him that it was a bad idea, and now look, Kirsten had gotten hurt because of it.

"No," Marissa said. "He was just sitting there. Like he didn't know what to do. And then finally, my mom got him up and into the car and they drove away. It was so weird. It was almost as if the wind had been knocked out of Caleb's sails." Summer then realized that if anything happened to Kirsten, the Cohen/Nichol clan would fall apart. Seth could complain all he wanted about his over-protective parents, but he wouldn't know what to do without his mother. And Sandy....he would just break down without her, Summer knew that much for certain. And she was Caleb's daughter, Caleb who had witnessed his beloved wife die. Summer knew that he might act big and bad, but if Kirsten died, it would shatter him. He couldn't lose both his wife and the daughter that reminded him so much of her.

"She's going to be fine," Summer said out of no where. Seth looked over at her surprised.

"What?"

"Your mom. She's going to be fine. She has to be." Fate wasn't that cruel. Ryan finally got a mother, Seth finally reconnected with his mother, and Sandy finally got his wife to come home from the office before ten at night and now had a healthy relationship, the best that Summer had ever seen, there was no way that she would die now.

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Caleb and Julie found Sandy sitting in the waiting room, his head in his hands.

"What's the matter? Is she okay? Is she out of surgery yet?" Caleb bombarded Sandy with questions. Sandy looked up.

"She's not out of surgery yet, no," Sandy said. "They haven't come out and told me anything. Is Seth here?" This went largely unanswered by Caleb who had begun to pace the floor and was complaining about the state of the hospital and muttering about how he was going to get Kirsten transferred to HOAG as soon as she was stable.

"Where are the doctors? Why aren't they out here talking to us and telling us how she is?"

"Cal, sit down, you're making me dizzy," Julie complained and Caleb spun towards her. He had actually forgotten that she was there, that she had driven him all the way down to Chino. He had been so focused on getting there. Getting to his daughter. Making sure that she was okay. He swore when Sandy called that his heart stopped.

"Sanford, are the doctors in there the best doctors in this hospital?" Caleb spun back around to face Sandy and Sandy shrugged.

"I don't know Caleb," Sandy said tiredly. "I'm going to go check on Ryan. See if Seth got here. I'll be back. Call me if something happens." With that, he took his leave and hurried downstairs. He wanted to check on Ryan, but he didn't want to leave the waiting room, in case the doctors came out, in case something happened. Sandy breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Seth, Marissa, and Summer arguing with the nurses to let them back to see Ryan. He could leave Ryan now without feeling guilty.

"Hey," he said tiredly.

"Dad." Seth went into his arms and Sandy didn't complain. It wasn't often that Seth showed any kind of affection, and Sandy needed the hug. He needed to hold his son in his arms. "How's Mom?"

"Still in surgery. Hi girls, thanks for coming down."

"Sure Mr. Cohen," Marissa said.

"Dad, they won't let us go back and see Ryan. That evil woman right there," Seth pointed to a woman sitting behind the desk. She looked up when he pointed. "Her. The devil in white. You heard me, the devil."

"They will now, come with me," Sandy said and he led the way to Ryan's room. "Can you stay down here with him and keep him company until your mother is out of surgery?"

"Of course," Summer answered. Sandy opened the door and the three kids filed in.

"Oh God," Marissa said hurrying over to his side.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Ryan said. "It's not as bad as Kirsten's. Go back up Sandy. We'll be fine here. We'll call you when they're going to release me." He didn't want Sandy staying there with him any more than was necessary. Kirsten was the one who needed him. She was in surgery because of him and she would need her husband.

"So when are they letting you blow this popsicle stand?" Seth asked sitting down in the chair next to Ryan's bed.

"Not sure," Ryan said shrugging. "Pretty soon I think."

"I'm going to go back upstairs," Sandy said. "You feeling okay kid?"

"Fine," Ryan answered automatically.

"Will you tell us if anything happens?" Seth asked as his father exited the room.

"Of course," Sandy promised. He closed the door to Ryan's room behind him and rested his head against the wall and for the first time all day allowed the tears that he had been holding back to fall. Sandy cried for Ryan, who had been betrayed one more time by his parents, and for Kirsten, who had just wanted her son back home safe and sound.

But mostly he cried because there was nothing else he could do.

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Hi! Please don't kill me. The fact that Dave and Dawn haven't been mentioned has not slipped my mind, I will deal with them next chapter. You just have to review! Tell me what you thought of this chapter. Thanks!