Chapter One

Summer didn't think she had been through anything more hellish then the funeral for her best friend. The weather had suddenly turned bitingly cold, the chill slicing through the inadequate California winter coats of the massive crowd that had turned up to see Marissa Cooper-Atwood lowered into Restfield Cemetery. She had stood beside Seth, holding the baby against her chest, looking down occasionally to make sure that the child was still sleeping. She wished that she could be as unaware as the baby, sleeping through the funeral of her mother, as though it was a normal day and a normal naptime.

The following wake was held at the Cohen's and Summer thought that even more people had arrived to express their condolences then had shown up then at the funeral. By the time her father and newest step-mother showed up, her mascara was running down her cheeks and her appearance was no longer respectable but she didn't care. It wasn't every day that you buried your best friend and she thought that she deserved her tears and her unkempt appearance.

At first, Seth had followed her around almost constantly but after a while they were both too exhausted to put forth the effort and he had taken to sitting on the couch, tickling the baby girl's feet in an attempt to make her smile. Summer didn't have the heart to tell him that newborn's didn't smile, not even for their mothers, but he looked so content with the baby that she just stood in the kitchen and watched them. She knew right then that Seth was going to make a great father one day and this whole thing had made her realize how precious family and time was and she was going to put off having both of those things with Seth any longer.

Beside her, Julie suddenly through her half-empty glass of Chardonnay into the sink, causing it to shatter on impact and Summer and Kirsten, who were getting a start on wishing the piles of dishes, had to duck out of the way to avoid being sliced. Afraid of what she might see, Kirsten turned to face Julie, who was standing motionless and staring into the sink as though nothing had happened, tears running down her cheeks.

"Where is he?" She hissed slowly, looking away from the sink and toward Kirsten and Summer. A small crowd had gathered to watch the infamous Julie Cooper and a hush had descended in the house. "It's my goddamn daughter's funeral, where is he?"

Kirsten knew that she was speaking of Ryan and wished that she knew the answer to her question. After the funeral, Ryan had returned to the house and vanished before any of the mourners could arrive to pat him on the back and tell him how sorry they were. She understood his decision to back away from the false sympathies but clearly Julie did not.

Summer stepped forward and took her best friend's mother by the arm. "Julie, why don't you go upstairs and lie down." She suggested, leading her out of the kitchen and toward the winding staircase.

Julie nodded numbly, tears rolling across her cheeks. She looked back at Kirsten. "I'm sorry I broke your glass." She said with detachment.

Kirsten waved her hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it, we've got plenty." She assured the woman. Kirsten knew that if either of her sons died, she would say anything and do anything to keep from remembering that fact and if Julie wanted to talk about breaking wine glasses and she could talk for hours.

Summer led Julie upstairs and they soon disappeared from the prying eyes of New Port's elite who had turned up just to catch a glimpse of the grieving woman. and to make Marissa's funeral the latest event on their social calendar. The whole damn community made Kirsten sick and she wanted to scream that at them suddenly but managed to swallow her words; a wake was hardly the place to stir up something.

In the living room, the baby had apparently had enough of Seth's tickles and started crying, her tiny legs kicking, waving her fists in the air. Seth lifted the baby and kissed her on the forehead, unaware that his mother was watching him closely. "Shh, Maddy." He whispered, rocking the screaming infant. Everyone had taken to calling the child some variation of the name Madison, aside from Ryan who had yet to hold his daughter and seemed more then happy not calling her anything at all.

Kirsten watched her son with a growing sense of warmth spreading throughout her body; Seth was every bit his father's son, kind and caring and gentle. His entire life he had taken it upon himself to shelter the broken and alone and make them whole again, just as he had done with Summer. Suddenly, she knew that he was going to do the same thing with this child.

Seth stood, still rocking the baby and headed for the kitchen. Kirsten reached for the baby, but her son pulled just out of her reach, unwilling to give up the newborn. "I'm going to find Ryan." He told her. Kirsten nodded; they had given up saying that baby Madison needed her father because they had stopped thinking that was true. Now she needed her aunt and uncle and her grandparents.

Seth left the kitchen and headed for the pool house, where Ryan still retreated when things got too rough handle. He hadn't been there in years, while he had been making his perfect life with Marissa, but if he ever needed the refuge, it would be now. He pressed the baby close against him to protect her from the chill as he walked the short distance from the patio toward the pool house, wishing that he had thought to grab a coat. The baby was so small, Seth didn't want to think about her catching a cold.

When he opened the pool house door and stepped inside, he wasn't surprised to find Ryan sprawled across what had once been his bed, surrounded by pillows and crumbled architectural plans. Once he had graduated from college, he had taken over the New Port Group, snatching it from the then Julie Nichol's hands and becoming vice president within his first year, ranking just under Kirsten. They often used the pool house as their unofficial office whenever things got too hectic in the office and more space was needed then could be provided by the kitchen table. Seth had always figured that he would have been jealous about Ryan instantly assuming his role in the "family" business but architecture was only vaguely interesting to him. In all truth, he was more interested in his father's practice then his mothers, but he wasn't going to say that to either parent.

Ryan didn't so much as bat an eyelid when Seth entered, quietly kicking the door closed behind him. The pool house was relatively warm and he felt himself relax about the likely-hood of Madison catching a cold. Almost instantly, he felt foolish for thinking such thoughts; he was behaving like the father, not the uncle. It should be Ryan worrying about whether his daughter was going to become ill, not him.

"Hey," Seth greeted causally, sitting on the edge of the bed. "How are you holding up?"

Ryan sighed and continued staring at the ceiling. "I just went to my wife's funeral." He mumbled. "How would you feel."

"Like shit." Seth answered promptly. He sighed. "People have been asking about you."

Ryan sat up and looked at Seth, not even glancing down at his wide-eyed daughter. "What people?" He questioned, though he wasn't too interested.

"Julie and Jimmy." Seth told him. "And Mom and Dad. Summer and I were worried about you too."

"Don't worry." Ryan instructed without much emotion. "I'm fine."

Seth sighed once again. "You don't have to be fine Ryan, no one's fine right now." He told the boy that was more like his brother then anything else. "But if you're fine, then why haven't you held your daughter?"

Ryan looked down at the baby as though he hadn't noticed her before. "You can't understand, Seth." He said finally, his voice low. Seth watched him closely. "She took Marissa from me."

"You can't think like that." Seth said, somewhat horrified that Ryan could even think like that. This baby was his own flesh and blood, not some nameless mugger who had killed Marissa. What happened to Marissa had been an accident and it was stupid to place the blame on an infant. "She's your baby; she's what you've got left of Marissa and-"

"But I don't want her to be what's left of Marissa." Ryan interrupted. "I want her to be just another part of Marissa, another part of our lives together. And now I'll never have that."

Seth glared at him, feeling anger creeping into his body. He tried to understand where Ryan was coming from but he found it impossible to do so, even when he placed himself in his brother's place; if Summer had died as Marissa had, he would never cast his child aside. He could keep her near and protect her always, just as he would have done with Summer. He would never want to take the chance of losing her as well. "You can't act like that." Seth told him. "She's your daughter and your responsibility. And she needs her father."

Ryan sat up, swinging his legs onto the floor and standing, keeping his back to Seth. "It seems like she's doing just fine without him." He mumbled, heading for the pool house door. Seth stood as well, planning on cutting Ryan off before he could make his exit. "Seth," Ryan turned to look at him, "I need to be alone. Please."

A moment passed between them and Seth remained where he was, silently seeming to give Ryan the permission that he didn't need to leave the pool house. The door slammed shut behind Ryan as he hurried across the yard, heading away from the house and down the hill toward the old Cooper house. Seth watched him until he had vanished from sight but still kept an eye on the spot Ryan had disappeared, as though he expected him to return seconds later, having come to his senses.

He remained standing there for a long time but Ryan never returned.

Kirsten expected Ryan to return after the last mourners had cleared out from the house but that was slowly beginning to appear as though it wouldn't be the case. She stood in the kitchen with Summer and Sandy, washing the mountains of dishes that had been used during the afternoon. Julie was passed out on the couch from a mixture of grief and alcohol and her husband was sitting in the living room, watching his remaining step-daughter and his son as they played a video game on mute.

Seth was sitting at the kitchen table, telling Madison a story as she sat in her car-seat, which hadn't been used for its purpose but had instead been posing as her cradle. Ryan hadn't been home since Marissa's death and so the seat was the only baby-gear that they had access to for the moment, aside from the stuffed hippopotamus that Summer had bought nights ago.

Summer smiled faintly as she listened to her husband speak to the baby. "Peter didn't notice the spider crawling across his hand until it bit his finger." Seth was saying, relating his creation of his favorite comic book super-hero. "But by then it was too late because the spider was genetically altered and-"

"Cohen," Summer admonished half-heartedly, "don't tell her those stories. She'll end up a dork, just like you." Seth looked at her but didn't say anything. "Isn't that right, Madison?" The baby gurgled.

Seth looked at his wife. "I'm just trying to keep her amused." He told her, though he knew that Summer's joking was only that. "Why don't you tell her a story and I'll do the dishes."

Summer retrieved her hands from the soapy water gratefully. "Good, I'm beginning to wrinkle." She wiped her hands across Seth's shirt in passing, kissing him on the cheek and took his seat in front of the baby. "Okay," she began, "there was once a place called The Valley, where beautiful, rich teenagers lived-"

Seth rolled his eyes. "Of course, I should have guessed." He mumbled. "That baby doesn't stand a chance."

Robert Barnes, Julie's quiet husband, entered the kitchen and smiled faintly at the baby. "She's going to look just like her mother." He remarked, almost to himself as he stepped toward Kirsten and Sandy. "Anything I can do to lend a hand?"

Kirsten shook her head. "No, unless you want to take some of these dishes to your house and wash them." She suggested jokingly. "But I think you'll have your hands full with Julie."

Sandy looked at the woman in question before looking back at Barnes. "How's she doing?" He questioned.

Barnes sighed and looked back at his wife. "Not so hot." He said truthfully. "It's hit her really hard."

"I know how she feels." Summer mumbled. But she didn't have the luxury of downing a bottle of wine and passing out of the couch, hoping to wake up when things had blown over and it hurt a little less to be awake.

But then again, Summer doubted that it would ever hurt less then it did.

It was only when Ryan didn't return the following day that Kirsten began to feel worry creeping into her mind. Any other time, she would have doubted that Ryan would do something irrational but this was no other time and irrational actions were the only actions Ryan was capable of.

Seth knew, without a doubt, that his brother was not going to return. He had known when he had looked into Ryan's eyes the previous afternoon; he had the look of a man that was leaving it all behind even though he know there was nothing left to stay for. This was something that Seth could not comprehend; Ryan had plenty to stay for and he was holding the biggest reason in his arms.

It was only when Seth found his wife in the kitchen rocking the baby to sleep that he voiced his suspicions. He sat down at the kitchen table and watched her. "Ryan's not coming back."

Summer stopped rocking and looked at him. "What? How do you know?" The baby, who was almost asleep, began wailing when the rocking stopped but both Cohens ignored her for the moment.

Seth sighed; there was no certain way to explain how he had known, the moment of complete understanding that had entered his mind as he had walked his friend, his brother, walk away from the pool house. It was something he just knew, just as Summer had known that her best friend had met her untimely end. It was something that he didn't understand completely himself. "I saw it in his eyes." Seth explained as best he could. "The way he looked...he's never looked like that before."

Summer managed to quiet the baby as she walked across the kitchen and knelt beside her husband, kissing him gently on the forehead. "You don't know for sure." She told him, trailing the fingers of her free hand along his cheek. "Ryan just needs some time. He'll come back."

Seth sighed once more, brushing Summer's long black locks away from her face. "I wish I was so sure."

A part of Seth was still hoping that Summer was right, that Ryan would return one afternoon and be ready to face the life he would be leading without Marissa. He hoped that his brother would return for his daughter, for his family and the life he had built for himself in New Port. It had been a long way to the top, but now he had reached the last rung, as the vice president of a million-dollar real estate company and now the father of a beautiful baby girl.

But Ryan had not returned and could not be found, despite everyone's best efforts. Sandy and Jimmy were out almost every afternoon looking him and Seth believed that they had covered most of California. Julie even went so far as to drive down to Chino herself and search around for the widower, but her search was just as fruitless as the others. Summer had even called Teresa, Ryan's ex-girlfriend and greatest confidant outside of Marissa but the frazzled young woman hadn't heard from Ryan in nearly fifteen years.

Seth knew that they would never uncover him. Ryan had been born and bred to make himself scare and all his years in New Port couldn't break him from that training. If Ryan didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be, even if he was still in New Port. It was a battle they had already lost and one that would have be abandoned shortly for more important matters.

Those matters dealt with the suddenly "orphaned" Baby Atwood, who was still nameless in legal terms and suddenly out both parents. Summer stood by the baby's newly purchased bassinet, courtesy of her Aunt Caitlin, and watched the child sleep. It seemed so unreal, so un-human, to leave a child before it was even old enough to lift her head and every ounce of Summer hated Ryan for what he had done. But, even more, she missed Marissa and wished that her friend could be here to stare down at the sleeping angel, with her husband beside her.

For the past week, Summer had found herself consumed with caring for the baby, all other priorities in her life suddenly put on hold. She hadn't been home for more then a few hours since learning of Marissa's death and her mind hadn't moved past caring for someone, whether it was the baby or someone who just couldn't handle life for the moment. Before Marissa's death, she had been working almost non-stop on her attempt at starting her own clothing line, ignoring Seth for the most part as she scrawled out designs and called up fabric suppliers.

Though she knew that Seth didn't blame her for her scarcity, Summer hated herself for it. How could she have acted like that, taking her friends for granted and her husband, believing that her life would always be the way it was. She never thought that one day she'd wake up to find that her best friend was dead and be forced to look back on her own life only to realize that what she saw didn't please her. If only Seth had been stubborn enough to drag her out of the room that had been dubbed The Workshop and force her to spend much-needed time with him. Summer knew that she loved Seth with all of her heart, she was just bad at showing it.

But now, now she wouldn't make that mistake again. She wouldn't spend another minute wondering if she had told Seth how much she loved him, wondering when the last time they had kissed had been, or the last time they had just been together. Things would be different, though just then she didn't know how different.

While Summer was watching the baby peacefully sleep, Seth found himself downstairs in the living room with his parents and Marissa's. He had found himself drawn into their conversation in passing, as soon as he had heard them mention the baby and knew that, once again, they were talking about what the child's fate would be.

Turning the child over to an adoption agency had been ruled out long ago, so long, in fact, that Seth wondered if it had ever been a possibility. But the problem of who would become legal guardian of the baby, until Ryan returned, though no one believed that he would, still remained.

That afternoon, the adults had decided that it was going to have be solved, one way or the other.

"I cannot raise a child." Julie said, seeming to be the only person in the room who wanted to bring that fact up. "Look at how Marissa and Caitlin turned out." She had stopped denying that she hadn't been the best mother and had made the respectable changes when her last child and first son had been born ten years ago.

Sandy sighed and nodded in slow agreement to Julie's statement. "By the time the child's in middle school, we'll all be too old to walk her to the bus stop without some kind of assistance." That was the first time Seth had ever heard his father admit to the fact that he was growing out. That scared Seth more then he liked; he wanted to believe that his father would always be youthful Sandy Cohen, crusading for the needy and surfing when he wasn't.

Kirsten buried her face in her hands. "I don't know what to do." She admitted. "Maybe if we're involved in the process of finding her a decent home, working with an adoption-"

"No." Seth interrupted before his mother had the chance to finish. "You can't do that to her, there's not telling where she'll wind up in five years." He couldn't bare the thought of his little niece being shuttled from family to family, never understanding what fantastic people her parents had been. Never understanding why she wasn't with them.

Kirsten looked up at her son at the same time Julie spoke. "Can you think of any alternatives? Because I sure as hell don't want to send my only grandchild away." Seth could see that her heart was in her words, reflected in the tears shining in her eyes.

Seth nodded slowly, his heart suddenly heavy in his chest. "Yes." He told them. He didn't think he had ever been so scared in his life, but he didn't allow himself to think about what he was about to do for even a second, because his fear would win over. "Summer and I will take her."

Jimmy looked Seth with a surprised expression on his face. "You and Summer?" He repeated. "And what makes you think you can raise her?" But he knew his heart had already agreed to the idea and that there was nothing he could say that would talk him out of it.

"We can raise her." Seth told Jimmy, knowing that his words were the truth. "We've been having trouble having our own kids...she can be our first."

Kirsten took her son's hand. "Seth, I don't think you understand how hard it can be raising a child." She told him. "What sort of life you'll have when you suddenly have a baby."

"And what can of life can we have wondering forever where she is and if she's being treated decently?" Seth asked his mother. He looked at four pairs of eyes that her focused completely on him. "You might not think I'm ready but there's nothing you can say to keep me from taking her. Ryan would have wanted it." He sighed. "Marissa would have wanted it."

Sandy nodded, feeling a pride for his son greater then any he had ever felt before. "You'll make a great father, son." He whispered, wishing that he was closer to Seth in order to pull his son to him. It seemed like just yesterday he had held Seth in his arms and thought about how his life was going to change. And now it was going to happen to his son and he couldn't be prouder.

Seth found Summer in his old room, sitting on his bed and watching the baby sleep with an odd sort of detachment. He had seen the look on her face more and more frequently and knew that she was thinking about Marissa, years gone past. Wordlessly, he sat down on the bed next to her and watched the baby that would soon become his daughter.

"Summer," Seth began, taking her hand and causing her to look at him. "I have to talk to you about something and-"

"The answer is yes." Summer interrupted. "I want her." Seth didn't give himself the chance to think about how Summer knew as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him, kissing the crown of her head. Summer was crying softly, the reason for her tears a mixed one; she missed her friend deeply, but she was suddenly overwhelmingly happy.

When they finally pulled away, Seth and Summer both found themselves looking at the baby once more. Seth took his wife's hand again and squeezed gently. "Do you think we're ready for this?"

Summer sighed. "We don't have much choice, do we?"