Thank you so much for reviewing! You guys are so totally awesome. So I just saw Finding Neverland and it's amazing. It's my pick of the week. Although, I warn you, I wept like a small child. Anyway, please let me know what you think of this chapter, and thank you again for reviewing!
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine.
When they arrived at the pizza place, Seth and Summer were waiting for them with two tables. One for the adults, and one for the kids. And Kirsten had to smile when she noticed that the two were no where near each other.
"Did we win? Otherwise, I don't want to talk to you," Summer warned Ryan. Kirsten grinned; apparently Summer was still the same.
"We won," Luke spoke up. "Thanks to Cohen. He was amazing. He zigged in when they zagged out, and zagged out when then zigged in. Incredible." A trace of Kirsten's old Ryan resurfaced, as he blushed a little. Seth clapped his hand on his brother's back.
"Way to go buddy," he said grinning. "But let's eat, I'm starving." Sandy pulled out Kirsten's chair and she sat down with the adults as the kids conglomerated at the other table. There were so many things that Kirsten was dying to know, but not sure how to ask, and it was Carson who brought up the first of the topics.
"So, Julie and Jimmy huh? I heard the divorce went through yesterday," he said. Sandy nodded his head, but Kirsten just listened intrigued.
"She sold the house," Sandy said. "Caleb bought it, and she and Kaitlin are living there, and Jimmy and Marissa moved to an apartment in the numbered streets." So Julie and Jimmy were the same, right?
"How's Marissa taking it?" Carson asked glancing back to make sure that the kids were occupied and ignoring their parents' conversation. They were too far away to hear anything anyway, and too concerned with their own conversation. Sandy shrugged.
"As well as can be expected I guess," Sandy answered.
"Her and Ryan are back together?" Carson seemed surprised at this, and Kirsten wondered why.
"Oh no," Sandy replied. "They've decided to be friends again, and Marissa wants to be more, but Ryan told her he thought that she should take some time before they get back together and figure some things out. Ryan told us, although we aren't supposed to know, that Julie and Jimmy cut back on a lot of her privileges, including her car, and her credit cards, and they've been insisting on therapy since Oliver shot himself." Kirsten would have bet money on Ryan and Marissa being together. The way they acted was like girlfriend/boyfriend. There was so much more to the story that she wasn't getting, and that she couldn't very well ask. Sandy placed his hand on her leg and smiled at her.
"Honey, you're being awfully quiet," he said.
"Oh…I'm still not feeling that great," she lied. That seemed to be enough for him and he gave her a small kiss on the cheek.
"What exactly happened with that kid?" Carson asked. Kirsten could have reached across the table and kissed him for being so inquisitive. "I only get what Luke knows, and what Meredith knows, and sometimes Luke won't completely fess up, and Meredith is also getting things second hand, so I never quite get the whole story."
"Well, that kid, Oliver? Marissa met him in therapy, that was Julie's bright idea, to help her cope with everything that was going on, I think she was afraid she was going to do something crazy like palm a dozen painkillers and wash it down with tequila or something," Sandy shook his head. Kirsten wanted to interrupt and tell Sandy that that wasn't such a crazy idea. She wanted to tell him that the Marissa that she knew did that in Tijuana.
Had the kids still gone to Tijuana? What about the Range Rover and the Imax?
Kirsten was starting to think she would never really know the truth about that one, and probably that had never happened in this world so she really wouldn't find out.
If she stayed here. She wasn't even sure how she got here, and she really didn't know how to get back. She didn't know if she wanted to get back.
"Anyway," Sandy continued, and Kirsten kept her comment to herself. "She broke up with Ryan while she 'dealt with things' as she called it, and she meets this kid at therapy and…"
"Mom?" Kirsten turned her head at the sound of Ryan's voice. How easy it had been to adapt to being called that by him. It was as if he had always called her that. She suddenly remembered that supposedly he had. "Can I have the car keys? I want to grab that magazine to show Luke."
"Sure honey," Kirsten said rummaging through her purse and coming up with the keys and handing it to her son.
"Thanks," he said as he jogged out of the restaurant. Sandy waited until his son was out of earshot and continued with the story.
"And he invites her to a party at his hotel room, and she goes, and according to Ryan, they start to date, and next thing we know we're getting a phone call from Marissa, crying, because Oliver has a gun, and Ryan and I go rushing over there, and as soon as we get to the door we heard a gunshot and Marissa comes out covered in blood." Carson shook his head, and Kirsten fought the urge to cover her mouth with her hand. It certainly ended differently in her world.
But in her world, Ryan was a jealous boyfriend, and that had made a difference. Kirsten had always suspected that Marissa was attracted to the danger part of Ryan. He was supposedly a bad boy that her mother disapproved of. If Ryan was a Cohen, then there would be no disapproving of him, and Marissa would have to find someone else to piss her mother off with. Enter Oliver. Just rich enough that Marissa can get away with it, just enough emotional problems that Marissa was attracted to him.
"His poor parents," Kirsten murmured. She couldn't imagine being in that position. Sandy and Carson both nodded in agreement.
"So Ryan told her that he felt that she needed to take some time and be on her own and continue with therapy before they started a relationship again."
"You think they'll get back together soon?" Carson asked. It was Kirsten who answered this time.
"I think so," she replied. Ryan came back in and dropped the keys into Kirsten's hands. "Did you find it?"
"Yeah, thanks," he smiled and walked back to the kids' table. He sat down next to Marissa and she made him take a bite of her pizza.
So that was the story with Marissa. Now Kirsten wanted to know what the story with Carson was. But clearly she couldn't ask.
The room spun and she was hit by another memory.
"Sandy!" Kirsten yelled. She held a screaming Ryan in her arms, and she was trying to calm him down as Seth sat crying in his bed. "Sandy!" She heard the front door open and her husband walk in. The boys had just turned two. They were still living in Berkeley, and Kirsten stayed home with the boys while Sandy worked. Sandy heard the boys both screaming ,and heard his wife's frantic cries, and took the stairs two at a time as he ran up to them.
"Honey? What's the matter?"
"Ryan has a temperature," she said. "He won't stop crying."
"Seth?" Sandy asked picking up the other toddler. Kirsten shrugged and he could see that she was on the brink of tears herself.
"He's crying because Ryan is," she explained. "I can't…I don't know…" She sunk down onto the rocking chair that her mother had bought her when she found out that she was pregnant. She rocked Ryan, who was still wailing and Sandy carried Seth out of the room and called the doctor. He put Seth in the playpen in the living room and went back up to help out his frazzled wife. He took Ryan out of her arms and gave her a kiss on the forehead.
"The doctor said to bring him in, but it's probably just an ear infection or something like that," Sandy told her.
"I'm a terrible mother," she wailed as she covered her face with her hands.
"No you aren't."
"The boys hate me. They're going to hate me…"
"They love you. They will always love you. Why don't I take Ryan while you stay here with Seth? We'll be back in a little bit. Everything's fine. Kids get sick. It's what they do." Kirsten managed a nod and Sandy reached out his hand and helped her stand up and they walked back downstairs. Kirsten leaned in and placed a kiss on Ryan's warm cheek.
"Bye baby," she whispered.
"Momma," he whimpered and she held him as Sandy went to get the car from the parking space that he had found a block away.
"Daddy's going to take good care of you," she told Ryan as she stroked his hair and kissed his forehead. "I love you." Sandy came back in and took his son off of Kirsten and gave her a kiss on the lips and gave her a reassuring smile.
"We'll be right back," he assured her. Kirsten went back into the living room and picked Seth out of his playpen and they sat down to read a book and waited for Sandy and Ryan to return.
"Kirsten? You're doing it again," Sandy accused.
"I'm sorry what?"
"The zoning out thing. We should probably get you home and into bed," Sandy said.
"Good idea," Carson agreed. "Feel better Kirsten."
"Thank you," she said as they went to tell the boys that they were heading home.
"Your mom still doesn't feel that hot, I'm going to take her home," Sandy told them as he handed Ryan some money to pay for the pizza. The Ryan she knew would have tried not to accept it. This Ryan took it right away and gave his father a smile. Sandy placed an arm on her waist and led her away.
It was going on two in the morning by the time that Kirsten heard the front door open and Ryan come stumbling in. He had dropped off Seth at home around eight, and when Kirsten asked Seth where his brother was, he replied that he had gone to a party at one of the kid's house on the soccer team. Seth had gone to see a movie with Summer, and Sandy and Kirsten had a lovely evening at home by themselves. But Seth had returned at midnight, like he was supposed to, and Ryan had not. Kirsten insisted on staying up, and Sandy insisted on staying with her.
But Sandy had fallen asleep with his head on her lap, and she was flipping through the television stations looking for anything to watch, and calling Ryan's cell phone for the hundredth time. It was off. It was going straight to voice mail every time. She sighed and put the phone on the table beside her. She occupied herself by running her hands through Sandy's unkempt hair and waited for the door to open.
When it finally did, Ryan stumbled in and Kirsten nudged Sandy.
"Sandy, he's home," she said and Sandy stood up and went to deal with his son. Kirsten followed Sandy out into the front hall where Ryan was trying to sneak up the stairs.
"Ryan," Sandy's voice stopped him. "What time is it?" Ryan fumbled with his phone and it lit up and he held it up for his father to see. "And what time were you supposed to be home?"
"Yes, but see, I couldn't just leave Chip there all by himself, so I had to stay until the end…"
"How much have you had to drink?" Kirsten asked.
"Nothing," Ryan lied.
"Ryan Matthew Cohen," Kirsten warned. Matthew. Where had that come from? Matthew wasn't Ryan's middle name in her world. So how had she known that it was his middle name in this world? "Don't lie to me."
"I'm not!"
"Yes you are, I can smell it on you, and you drove home drunk," Sandy said. "Go upstairs. You're grounded for three weeks. One week for staying out past curfew, one week for drinking and then lying about it, and one week for driving home drunk. You should have called us. We have that deal, Ryan, for a reason. "
"Dad…"
"Do you want to make it four?" Ryan scowled and stomped up the stairs, clearly having sobered up by arguing with his parents. Kirsten sighed and ran a hand through her hair. Sandy wrapped his arms around her.
"Let's go to bed," she mumbled into his shirt.
"Good idea," Sandy said taking her hand and leading her upstairs.
It was the first time that she had wished that she had her old Ryan. Her old Ryan was meticulous about curfew. Her Ryan would have not driven home drunk. Her Ryan wouldn't have been so irresponsible. Kirsten felt so frustrated.
But then again, not everything could be perfect, right? The bad came with the good, always. This life was great. And so if she had to deal with a few minor problems, then fine. She could deal with a few minor problems.
She climbed into bed next to her husband and wondered what would happen when she woke up this time.
Okay, so I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please review and I'll try to get up the next chapter as soon as I can. Thanks!
