Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters.

A/N: Are you excited? I AM!!!! Just 1 week, one glorious week, (and 3 days) before it

is back on TV!!!!!! AHHHHHH!!!!!

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He wiped his eyes and blew his nose in a Kleenex before answering the phone. "Hello?" he said, picking up the phone just before the answering machine kicked in.

"Hello?" came a shy voice in reply. His heart skipped a beat?

"Marissa?" He asked, his hopes rising.

"Hey Ryan, how are things?" He was so happy to hear her voice he smiled in spite of himself.

"Great," he rolled his eyes, "how have you been?" he couldn't stop himself from smiling. 'She doesn't hate me, Marissa is talking to me right now, maybe I haven't lost her after all...'

"Great, everyone says hi."

"Tell them I say hi, how's Seth?" He asked, remembering his best friend.

"Well actually, that was the main reason I called...He's missing, Ryan. After you left he disappeared. No one knows where, but his boat is gone. He left a note, but it didn't say anything. Sandy and Kirsten are a wreck, not to mention how Summer is taking it..."

He was in no way ready for that. The news knocked the air out of him. 'How could this happen? God, I'm such and idiot! How could he leave like that?'

"Ryan are you there?" the voice on the phone brought him back to reality.

"I'm coming home, I have to find him, I have to make this right." He headed for his coat and car keys. Then, with regret, remembered he had let Thereasa borrow the car for her appointment. He sat back down, rubbing his temples.

"You can't." Marissa said plainly.

Her response angered him, it was his friend that he cared about too, and he had just as much right as anyone else to go look for him. "What? Why not?"

"You hurt us enough by leaving the first time, the Cohens don't want to see you. You backstabbed them. After everything they gave you, you just up and leave like they meant nothing. They treated you like family and you left them in the dust. I'm not surprised Seth left. Finding out that his best friend was only using him, only to leave at the drop of a hat without any remorse. Just stay there, where you belong"

Every word out of her mouth killed him a thousand times over. 'I knew it, I knew she hated me, she was probably just being nice, calling and talking to me... I really have lost her..."

He sank back down into his chair, lost for what to do. Finally he said, chocking back tears, "Okay, I'll just....stay here then...bye..." he hung the phone up and let it drop to the ground, along with the tears he had been holding back.

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Thereasa walked up to her apartment door with a smile on her face, and new found confidence in what she was doing. 'This is the right thing to do,' she told herself.

She opened the door and stopped dead. Her smile disappeared and her heart broke when she saw Ryan sobbing on the floor. It made her want to cry. 'I have no right seeing this,' she thought, but she couldn't just leave him. Slowly she approached him until she was right behind him. Carefully she wrapped her arms around him and rocked him back and forth. He jumped at her touch, but soon relaxed into it, his sobs dying down.

Once he was calm enough, she turned to face him, "What's wrong, baby?"

His head snapped up, and seeing her, for what seemed like the first time, he ran out of the room and into his, shutting the door behind him.

Thereasa sat there on the floor, shocked.

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He felt foolish, crying on the floor like a baby, 'this is really cool Ryan, what if Marissa were to see you like this?' but he didn't care. Everything was going wrong and there was nothing he could do about it, because he had caused it.

He felt a comforting hand on his back, it scared the crap out of him, but it was comforting. So he relaxed into it, imagining it was Marissa and things were like they used to be. He calmed down imagining them together and soon stopped his childish crying. He looked up, hoping to see Marissa's face, but was shocked to see Thereasa's. He didn't understand how she was there. Embarrassed, he got up and ran to his room, shutting the door and locking it.

'What just happened? I could have sworn Marissa was the one comforting me, it felt so real...'

He went to the bathroom again and washed his face.

'You need to pull yourself together. Thereasa doesn't need this right now, you have to support her. Who knows what kind of pain she's going through.'

He took a deep breath and set his mind off of Marissa and onto keeping Thereasa as comfortable as possible.

oO0 0Oo

Dinner was perfect, Ryan made spaghetti with Swedish meatballs, green beans, cherry Jell-O with whipped cream, and mint chocolate chip ice cream for dessert.

Thereasa savored her last spoonful of Jell-O and licked her lips clean. She smiled up at Ryan before spooning herself some ice cream. "Dinner was wonderful, thank you," she said, adding chocolate sauce to her bowl.

"You're welcome. Sorry I've been so ...... you know....lately..... I think I'm sick."

"That's ok. Maybe you could get schecked out by Dr. Hearall, he's been my doctor since before I can remember. I'm sure he'd be happy to check you out."

"That's ok, I probably just have the flu. How was your checkup today? Did you find out anything?"

He let the question hang. He knew about the test. She looked at her bowl and busied herself with her ice cream, trying to avoid eye contact.

"Well, yes...First of all, I'm having a girl."

"That's great! Congrats!"

"Thanks," she said, stealing a glance at him and smiling at his smile. Seeing the look on his face almost broke her, she knew this was wrong, but she had to be selfish, for the sake of her baby.

"I also found out that the father... the dad is....Ryan, it's you." She expected his shocked silence to follow the news, but she didn't expect this.

"Thereasa, that's wonderful, now you don't have to worry about Eddie at all, you have proof that the baby isn't his, so he can't do anything about it. This is great!" She tried to believe him, but the guilt in her stomach kept building.

She smiled and rose to do the dishes, anything to get her away from this guilt.

"Don't worry, I'll get those, he said, as she reluctantly dropped them in the sink and headed for her room.

'This is a good thing...' he kept telling himself, 'so why aren't I happy? I'm going to be a father, what could be better?' But he knew the answer.

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The next few days flew by rather painlessly, and relatively quick. It all seemed a blur. Marissa was slowly recovering and getting into the summer pattern. Going shopping, going to the beach, checking out guys, gossiping with Summer, eating, sleeping, and starting over the next day; forever ignoring the growing pain in her heart.

But as time went on, it got harder, for the both of them, to pretend like nothing was wrong, like they didn't think about each other non stop, that they didn't love each other and that the way they were living was the "right way."

On June 28, and 10:03 p.m. Marissa snapped. She got into her car and drove. She didn't know where she was going, she just knew she had to get away.

After and hour she passed a sign in the dark and only vaguely remember reading "Welcome to Chino."

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There was a knock at the door. This time Ryan didn't jump. It was the first time in days he hadn't jumped when the doorbell rang, or the phone rang, or a dog barked. He was ever waiting to hear from Marissa that the slightest noise instantly set him off, making him think it was her.

It made Thereasa sick. Sick with herself for what she had done, and sick at the way Ryan would never be hers.

After a couple of days not thinking about her, or having any phone calls from her, he was finally starting to heal, Thereasa counted on that.

"I'll get it," he said, hopping over the back of the couch and dashing for the door. Thereasa sat down and started folding laundry as she became enthralled by the show that was on the T.V.

She hear commotion downstairs, Ryan's raised voice saying, "What are you doing here?" and a smacking noise followed by a thud. She heard heavy footsteps rapidly coming down the hall, which stopped when they entered the living room.

Thereasa slowly looked up and her breath caught in her throat. Her heart stopped.

A calm voice, like a dam about to break, whispered, "Hello Thereasa, how is my little whore?"

"H-hello Eddie..."

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Dun dun DUN!!! j/k