DISCLAIMER: I don't own The OC or its characters.

Author's note: Thank you for your kind reviews! I really appreciate your comments and reviews! Enjoy this chapter and please let me know what you think!

Sandy walked through the door wondering why Kirsten was home already. It was only 5:30. Kirsten shouldn't have been home for another hour.

"Kirsten?" he called out as he closed the door.

"Sandy! You're home already?" Kirsten asked with panic and disappointment in her voice as she quickly ran out of the kitchen and into the living room.

"Yeah…I wasted no time…did what I had to do and got home as soon as possible. What are you doing home already? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine…I was just…doing something…in the kitchen…for work…its messy in there so let me just clean it up before you go in there," Kirsten said frantically as she tried to block Sandy from getting near the kitchen. "So, what are you going to do now?"

"I was hoping we could spend some time together."

"Okay, we could." Kirsten looked at her watch, remembering she had to pick up the boys and said, "Oh, I almost forgot. The kids need a ride home. Hey, do you mind going to get them? They are hanging out at Summer's…but Summer and Marissa are working on prom committee stuff tonight and the kids don't want to stay for that."

"Typical of our kids. I'll go get them. But when I come back, it's going to be you and me spending time together."

"Okay," Kirsten said showing a quick smile and using her hands to guide Sandy back out. She felt bad chasing him out but it'd be worth it later.

Sandy got back into the car, confused about why Kirsten was home and rushed him out like that. He wasn't buying her "doing something for work at home" story. "At least she seems like she's in a better mood than she was when I left," Sandy thought to himself.

When Sandy and the boys got home the boys went into the Pool House and Sandy headed into the kitchen, wondering why Kirsten had kept him away from there.

"Kirsten?" he said as he walked into the living room.

Kirsten was in the bedroom applying lipstick. She was startled when she heard the door open. "How'd they get home so fast!" she wondered to herself. She looked at herself one more time in the mirror and quickly headed toward the living room where she heard Sandy calling her, but, it was too late, she knew right away when she heard Sandy say her name a second time in a surprised tone that he had already made his way into the kitchen.

"Sandy, you weren't supposed to see yet!" she said in a half-teasing, half-annoyed manner.

Sandy turned around, only to see his wife decked out in a beautiful, red dress, and matching accessories. He couldn't help but think to himself how lucky he was to have her.

"Kirsten, you look beautiful, are we having someone over for dinner tonight?" Sandy was referring to the fact that the kitchen was transformed into a romantic, elegantly decorated setting. The room lit only by red and white candles and instead of the table being set, the kitchen island was set with one of the Cohens' more fancy dinner sets, along with cloth napkins.

"No," Kirsten said softly and smiled, "you and I are having dinner tonight. Just us. I gave the kids money to go out for pizza."

Not only could Sandy not believe his eyes, now he couldn't believe his ears. It wasn't even 24 hours ago that Kirsten was angry with him over his kissing Rebecca. Now she was acting like nothing had happened.

"What's the fancy occasion?" Sandy asked curiously as he took off his jacket and put it on the wicker chair.

"Well, the two of us haven't had a romantic dinner in a while. That's all," Kirsten replied as she took the bowls off the island and poured some soup into them.

"Where's the food from? It isn't Chinese or Tai, so I'm going to take a wild guess that it's from the club."

"Yeah, it is," Kirsten lied. The truth was that she left work early to go food shopping and so that she would have enough time to prepare a nice meal for the two of them, but she was afraid that if she told Sandy she attempted cooking, he wouldn't even try the food.

As they ate, they had a long talk about everything that had been going on over the last few weeks. Sandy honestly explained the entire Rebecca situation and Kirsten honestly explained the reason she took off her ring.

Then out of nowhere, Kirsten quickly said, "And actually, I lied…the food isn't from the club…I cooked it." She looked skeptical and anxious as she awaited Sandy's reaction.

"YOU DID?" Sandy said as he nearly spit out the mashed potatoes he had in his mouth.

Kirsten smiled and nodded, a bit bashful after admitting the truth.

"What made you attempt cooking?"

"Well…do you remember the first fight we had when I misinterpreted why you wanted me to move out of the mail truck? After we made up and I moved in with you, I cooked us our first meal. Granted, it wasn't a good meal, but it was the start of a beautiful life together." Her voice got softer as she said, "This morning when I woke up and you were gone…I got scared that you left me…I could even accept you kissing Rebecca, but I can't accept you leaving me." She stopped talking for a minute, afraid that the tears she felt building up inside her would start running down her face, so after giving Sandy a sad glare, she just looked away and played with her fork, mixing the mashed potatoes.

Immediately, Sandy took Kirsten's hands and said, "Kirsten, I would never, ever leave you! I was going to wait till a little later tonight to explain where I went, but I'll do it now. I wasn't leaving you when I left this morning. Never Kirsten, I would never leave you. Please honey, don't ever think that."

"Well I was scared, but relieved when we sort of made up this morning. Then I started dreaming about when we first moved in together and I got an idea that maybe cooking a romantic dinner would be good for us."

"Aww, Kirsten," Sandy said as he got off the island chair and wrapped his arms around Kirsten, rubbing her back with one arm hoping it would comfort her.

Kirsten gladly accepted Sandy's embrace and rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, relieved that she and Sandy had finally completely made up.

They stayed in the embrace for a few minutes until Sandy said, "Okay, I want to explain to you where and what I was doing today."

"But I thought you couldn't tell me…lawyer/client confidentiality…"

Sandy wanted to avoid lying, so he changed the subject and said, "Know what? Why don't we go outside? Actually you go, and I'll be out in one second."

Kirsten refilled her glass of wine and then headed outside. She sat down and nervously waited for Sandy to come outside and explain himself.

Sandy frantically got what he bought out of his coat jacket and looked at it one more time. He then went into the family room and turned on the cd player and then pressed a button that turned the speakers outside on. He pressed play on the cd player only to start hearing Seth's, as Sandy put it, "crazy" music start blasting. "Seth and Ryan," he mumbled to himself, "they had to take out the romantic music I had in the cd player."

Suddenly Kirsten heard the music come on loudly, making her jump. "What is Sandy doing?" she thought to herself. Then one of the light music stations came on.

Sandy quickly came outside and kneeled down on one knee right in front of Kirsten, took her hands into his, and began with, "Sorry, I was trying to make it romantic with one of our romantic cds, but the kids must have taken it out."

That made Kirsten smile.

"Kirsten, I don't know if you remember, but when I insisted on buying you that wedding set you said was too expensive, there were three rings to the set. You have the engagement and wedding rings, but there is also an eternity ring that fits on top of the wedding ring. I should have remembered to get it for you for our 20th anniversary, but I didn't. Last night I remembered about the third part of the wedding set when I saw you drinking in the kitchen, I saw your ring shining so brightly. It made me think that this would be a great time to get it for you."

Kirsten's face had softened greatly once Sandy had started talking. She was smiling as she said, "Don't tell me you went to Berkeley."

"I took an early flight. You first called me when I was on the plane so my phone was off. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I wanted it to be a surprise. I want you to know that this symbolizes my never ending love and commitment to you and our marriage."

"Oh, Sandy…" Kirsten said as her smile got even wider, "you shouldn't have."

"Yes, I should have. You deserve it," Sandy said as he let go of Kirsten's hands to get the ring out of his pocket and put it on Kirsten's left finger.

Kirsten's eyes opened wide and her mouth dropped open, making the same facial expression as when Sandy proposed with the plastic ring from the Cracker Jack Box.

After Sandy put the ring on, he continued to hold her left hand, looked at her and smiled, then gave her a kiss on the lips, to which Kirsten responded with a kiss of her own.

"I love you," Kirsten said, looking Sandy in the eye after their two kisses.

"I love you," Sandy said back and kissed her again.

Kirsten stood up and pulled Sandy up so that she could wrap her arms around him. They just stood there, gradually swaying back and forth as their bodies remained as close as possible.

They had been ignoring the music but once they stopped talking, the music got loud again. Ironically, the song, "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" by Elton John came on as they stood in their embrace.

Sandy then said, "I guess it did turn out to be pretty romantic. Can I have this dance with you, my wife?"

"Yes, you can, my husband," Kirsten replied smiling as Sandy took her hand and led her onto the fake grass to dance. Kirsten held Sandy's hand in one hand, and put the other on his shoulder as they began dancing together.

After dancing for a minute, Kirsten changed positions and let go of Sandy's hand and wrapped her arm around Sandy's other shoulder so that she could be closer to him. She rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, completely enjoying the moment.

Sandy took the closeness as an opportunity to kiss Kirsten's shoulder and neck, which he did very lightly and gently. He heard his wife moan as his kisses slowly made their way around the sensitive spots on her neck and shoulders.

By the end of the song, Sandy and Kirsten had stopped dancing in a circle and were just holding each other as they made out. They were startled when the next song on the radio came on, which was Meatloaf's "Paradise By the Dashboard Light". They stopped kissing and looked at one another and laughed.

Sandy said, "Well, this song gives me an idea."

"Oh yeah?" Kirsten said seductively.

"Yeah, come on, let's go to the bedroom," Sandy said laughing.

"What about the dishes?" Kirsten said, looking toward the kitchen.

"Come on, they can wait till morning. I however, can't wait to…you know…till the morning."

"Me either," Kirsten said smiling.

The next morning, Sandy and Kirsten slept late. Seth and Ryan knew what that meant. When the two lovebirds finally strolled into the kitchen holding hands after 7:30am on work and school day, they were startled by the mess left from dinner last night.

"Seth, Ryan, you couldn't have cleaned this up?" Sandy said in a teasing manner.

"Hey, me and Ryan barely have enough time to gel our hair before school. You can't expect us to clean dishes before school, too!"

"You have a point there, son, me and your mother will clean them. That just means more time together before work, right honey?" Sandy said to Kirsten as he leaned in and gave her a kiss on the lips.

"Right," Kirsten said smiling.

"Ugh, you guys, I thought that you finally stopped that early morning kissing because you realized how gross it is to witness this early!" Seth said.

"Actually, we're going to do it more often, right honey?" Kirsten said smiling.

"Right," Sandy said as he leaned in to kiss Kirsten again. Sandy and Kirsten loved teasing their boys about kissing in front of them.

"Come on Ryan, I've had enough of this. I can't believe I'm actually going to say this but I want to go to school."

Sandy and Kirsten smiled at one another.

Sandy said, "It feels good to be back to how we were."

"We're better than how we were," Kirsten said as she looked at her new ring and then back up at Sandy, relieved that they finally put one of the downs of their marriage in the past and were back on the top of their marriage.

So I think that'll be the last chapter, but—if I can think of any way to continue this story or if any of you have any ideas, let me know, I'll be glad to continue it. Please let me know what you think!

Psst…I'm starting a new Kandy story that is going to revolve around the spoilers for the next four episodes! That will be posted within the next few days!