Title: Black Diamonds

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

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

Chapter 16

In the kitchen, Sam helped Ryan put together a bag with ice in it. Ryan sat down at the kitchen island and put the bag of ice on his hand. Right now his hand hurt worse than his eye. Ryan sighed and closed his eyes. This was just great. He was glad that neither Sam nor Angela seemed to know what to say to him and just sat there with him silently, waiting for Henry to come in and yell at him.

After a few minutes, Ryan heard footsteps and opened his eyes. All of the adults were coming into the kitchen. Henry walked over to Ryan.

"Why don't we go out to the pool house?"

Without looking at anybody, Ryan took his bag of ice, which he had moved to his eye a minute ago, and followed Henry into the pool house. He sat down on the end of the bed, and Henry sat down in a chair. It was very similar to when he had his little chats with Sandy in his own pool house at home. But he didn't know what to expect from Henry.

After sitting down, Ryan laid the bag of ice on the back of his right hand. Henry pointed to it.

"Shouldn't that be on your eye?"

"I'm going back and forth."

Henry nodded. Then he took a deep breath and looked straight at Ryan. He said, calmly, "Would you tell me what happened?"

Ryan nodded and looked out the window at the pool. "Sam, Angela, and I were at the pier. We were sitting on a bench, minding our own business, eating our lunch and talking. These three water polo guys came by and started making comments. We tried to just ignore them, like all of you guys, you and Sandy and Kirsten, tell us to do. They didn't stop. We tried to just get up and walk away, but they blocked our path."

Ryan took a deep breath and looked at Henry. "They wouldn't move, and they were making nasty comments about Angela..." Ryan looked down. "So... I punched the guy who was the biggest jerk. Then the second guy punched me, so I punched him back. Then Sam grabbed me and we got out of there."

Ryan looked back at Henry. "That's it."

Henry nodded then leaned forward. "I know I'm not your parent or your guardian, but I am a parent, and I'd like to give you a little parental advice."

Ryan nodded. Henry turned out to be a lot like Sandy.

Henry sat back and looked like he was lost in thought for a moment. Then he started lecturing. "I can understand having to defend yourself, or your friends, if you are getting attacked physically. But if it is just comments, there is really no excuse for violence." Henry paused. "I know, I know, you've heard this before."

Ryan shrugged and looked back out at the pool. Of course he'd been lectured about his fighting before -- by Sandy, and before that by school principals and guidance counselors.

Henry continued, "Violence should really be the last resort. There are other ways to deal with confrontations. I applaud your efforts to try to ignore the comments and to try to walk away, but I'm thinking that you didn't try hard enough to avoid fighting. In the end, you got mad, right? Then you started the fight. You're the one who made it physical, not them."

When Henry paused, Ryan glanced at Henry, briefly, then looked away again. Yes, he got mad, who wouldn't?

Henry sat back and regarded Ryan for a few moments, until Ryan looked at him. "You know I'm going to have to tell Sandy, right?"

Ryan nodded, again, and looked away, again. Sandy was not going to be happy, after what Sandy told him after he attacked Oliver, about thinking it through and talking to someone before he raised his fists. And then with the fight with Eddie, right there at the house, although Ryan didn't start that, and he didn't throw any punches in that fight, intentionally.

After a few moments of silence, Henry took a quick look back at the main house, then back at Ryan. "Well, if we still want to go through with this charade with Nathan -- he's going to expect me to punish you for this fight."

Ryan turned back to look at Henry and raised his eyebrows.

Henry quickly added, "You know, just pretend. It would be up to Sandy to do anything for real. I have an idea -- if you still want to go through with this charade. I have to tell you, the way you and I interacted in the livingroom I think convinced him that you live with us."

Ryan gave Henry a half-smile. "Yeah, let's do it."

"Here's what I was thinking -- you're not planning on going anywhere the rest of today or tomorrow, right? What if we tell Nathan, you know, if he asks, that I've grounded you for the rest of the weekend? We could pretend that you were going to go out with Marissa tonight, and I told you that you couldn't because of the fight. How's that sound?"

Ryan thought about it. It didn't really change anything. He wasn't going anywhere anyway. So he told Henry, "Sure. That's fine."

Henry gave Ryan a little smile and stood up. "OK. Well. Why don't you relax out here and put the ice on your hand or eye or whatever, for as long as you like. Come in when you're ready." Then Henry headed back into the house, closing the pool house door behind him.

After Henry was gone, Ryan sighed and fell back on the bed. He moved the bag of ice up from his hand to his eye and thought about what Henry said. After a few minutes, Ryan sat up on the bed and reached for the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Sandy, it's me."

"Hey, kid, how's it going over there? How's the plan going?"

"The plan's going good, but, um, I think I'm in a little bit of trouble."

Ryan could hear Sandy sigh. "What happened?"

So Ryan relayed to Sandy the story of what happened at the pier, like he told it to Henry. At the end of the story, Sandy sighed again.

"You know you just violated your probation, right? Because you threw the first punch?"

Ryan lay back on the bed. "Yeah, I know."

"What were you thinking? Last time, Oliver didn't press charges. What about this time?"

"These guys aren't going to press charges, either."

"Yes, fortunately, I agree. So you should be OK. But, Ryan, you can't afford to keep doing this, starting fights."

"I know, I know."

"All right. We'll talk about this when you get home. Are you still planning on staying there for the weekend?"

"I was planning to, unless you want me to come home."

"No, go ahead and stay there. Our talk can wait. Seth is still sick."

"How is Seth?"

"Sicker than he was yesterday, if you can believe that. But he'll be fine."

Just then, Henry opened the pool house door. Ryan sat up.

"Hey, Ryan, we're making sundaes --" Then he saw that Ryan was on the phone. "Who are you talking to?"

"Sandy."

Henry looked surprised. "Oh."

"Yeah, I told him about the fight."

Henry nodded. Ryan could hear Sandy, "Ryan, who's that?"

Ryan went back to the phone. "Henry."

Sandy and Henry both said, at the same time, "Let me talk to him."

Ryan smiled at that. He said to both, "Sure."

Ryan got up and handed the phone to Henry, then headed into the house. He didn't really want to hear what Henry had to say to Sandy, and vice versa, about him.

When Ryan entered the kitchen, he found Sam and his Uncle Nathan sitting at the table, and Gwen was putting out the sundae stuff.

Gwen smiled when she saw Ryan. "Hi, Ryan. How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, thanks."

"We're having our sundaes now."

"Yeah, Henry told me."

"Where is Henry?"

"On the phone with Sandy."

Gwen turned to Nathan, explaining, "That's Sandy Cohen. We told you about him. He's Ryan's lawyer. And our friend."

Sam spoke up, "What, did my Dad call him?"

"No, I did... I, um, I kind of violated my probation when I threw the first punch today."

Sam sat up straight, looking alarmed. "What?"

Gwen said, "Oh, Ryan --"

Ryan quickly reassured her, "Don't worry, um, Gwen. Sandy said I'll be OK if those guys don't press charges, which they won't. Those kind of guys never do."

"You know, you really shouldn't be fighting in the first place..."

"Yeah, I know."

Gwen chuckled. "You probably already heard about this from Henry."

Ryan nodded. "And Sandy."

Uncle Nathan took the opportunity to make a snide comment to Ryan. "Sounds like you have a lot of experience with this." He turned to Gwen. "That's what you get for allowing juvenile delinquents in your house."

Gwen said, quickly, "Sam, Ryan, why don't you go get Maggie, Angela, and Aunt Beverly. They're upstairs. Let them know about the sundaes."

Sam stood up. "Sure, Mom." He went over to Ryan and started to kind of push him out of the kitchen. "Come on, Ryan."

As soon as they were out of the kitchen, Ryan could hear Gwen chewing out her brother about being civil to members of her family.

On the way up the stairs, Sam said to Ryan, "Sorry about my uncle, man."

"That's OK. It reminds me of Seth's grandfather, Caleb. He doesn't like me in the family, either."

"The plan seems to be working, though. He seems to really think you live here."

"Yeah."

When they got upstairs, Sam and Ryan found Maggie, Angela, and their Aunt Beverly in Maggie's room and told them about the sundaes, and all five of them headed down to the kitchen to partake of them.

To Be Continued