A/N: Thanks again for all the great reviews and support. You guys are really keeping me on track with the updates! At the rate I'm going, I figure I should have the story finished by the end of the week, maybe sooner. So please, keep the encouragement coming, and spread the word! I'm getting kind of addicted to this fan fiction thing – I already have an idea in mind for the next story. :)

Sunday morning dawned bright and brilliant for Julie Cooper. Her life was good, really. She was married to a multi-millionaire, lived in a gargantuan mansion, and had two beautiful, brilliant daughters. As she shuffled out of bed and jumped into the shower, she smiled at the thought of Marissa and the events that today would hold. She wondered, as the warm watered cascaded over her shoulders, if her princess had any idea that today was the day her life would change for the better.

Sure, she could be manipulative, if she had to be. But Julie had learned that sometimes life did give her lemons, and the only way to make lemonade was to squeeze the bastards until they bled. And once Marissa was back with Ryan, with someone they could both tolerate, she would thank her mother for all of her persistence.

She was humming a happy tune by the time she towel-dried her wet hair and slid into a Juicy sweat suit, the sweet smells of breakfast were wafting through the house. That was strange – the cook didn't usually work on weekends.

Rounding the corner, Julie stopped and stared at the sight in her kitchen. Marissa, dressed in a bathrobe, wet hair in a ponytail, was listening to her IPod and flipping pancakes on the griddle. She was fairly certain that she had never, in eighteen years, seen her daughter cook anything but macaroni.

Marissa lifted two more fluffy pancakes from the pan on the stove and set them on a plate before turning down the burner. The bacon was finished, the oranges had been run through the juicer, and the little light on the waffle iron had just come on. As she extracted the last piece of her perfect breakfast for two, she looked up to see her mother, mouth agape, on the other side of the counter. "Morning, Mom," she smiled.

Julie seemed too perplexed to form words. "What the hell?" was all that came out when she finally found her voice.

Marissa just smiled and began moving containers of jam, syrup, powdered sugar, and butter to the dining room table. "It's breakfast," she said finally.

Shaking her head, Julie regained her composure. "Honey, that's very thoughtful of you, but we're supposed to be meeting Connor for brunch at the club in a few hours."

Connor. Right. "Um, we're not meeting Connor today," Marissa informed her mom.

Julie moved toward the kitchen, not really sure if it was safe to enter. There was a great possibility that she would be sucked into the twilight zone if she crossed the threshold, but she would take her chances. "Marissa, I know that you think I'm trying to sabatoge your relationship, but. . ."

"Mom," Marissa interrupted, standing in the kitchen with two empty plates and two sets of silverware in her hands. "Connor and I broke up last night. Again. For good." She moved to the dining room and then back. "Are you gonna want juice or coffee or both?"

Now she had moved past confusion, to whatever was beyond. "I'm sorry?" In the list of maternal things to say, that seemed like the best. But this wasn't heartbroken Marissa, or hateful Marissa. This was someone Julie wasn't sure she had ever met. The look on her daughter's face was almost, well, happy.

"I thought you'd be glad," Marissa shot, pouring a cup of coffee and handing it to her mom, who was now leaning against the kitchen counter. She assumed it was to keep from falling over.

Julie thought about denying, but then bit her tongue. It would be transparent if she said she wasn't thrilled. "What happened? You guys seemed happy last night."

"That wasn't happy," Marissa smiled, sipping from her orange juice. "That was drunk. At least, Connor was drunk." She leaned against the refrigerator and spoke as though she and her mother had these conversations all the time. "I drove him home, he passed out, and I had a talk with his mom. She told me that he's going back to Pacific, that he doesn't feel comfortable at Harbor." Her mother didn't react. "I thought you would be happy or something."

Shrugging, Julie finally took a drink of her coffee. It was cinnamon, her favorite. This girl was starting to scare her. "You don't seem so broken up, either," was all she said. "Coffee's good," she added.

Marissa smiled at the compliment. "I don't love him," she said simply. "And I was trying to turn him into something he wasn't."

"Ryan?" Julie asked.

Nodding, Marissa opened the refrigerator and tabled her orange juice in favor of a water bottle. "I spent the night out on the beach, in my car, thinking about stuff. And I think I had an epiphany."

Julie laughed. "An epiphany, huh?" She looked into the dining room, at the elaborate spread, all surrounding a beautiful bouquet of wild orchids. "And that produced truly amazing flowers and a whole lot of carbs?"

Marissa's smile faded a little bit as she drank from her water and then led her mom into the dining room. This wasn't going to be easy. And for a split second, she thought about bailing. But it was necessary, and she had come too far to back out now. "Can we talk, Mom? Just you and me?"

Eyeing the table and then her daughter, she shrugged. "Is that not what we're doing?"

Marissa's shoulders sagged a bit. "I mean, can I tell you some stuff and you really listen to me? No time limits, no interference, no lies? Just you and me? Like mother and daughter stuff?"

Julie's iced heart melted in her chest. She had long since given up on the thought of any mother/daughter time with Marissa – she was sure that she would have to wait for Caitlyn to enter high school for that bonding to happen. Pulling out a chair, she sat before one of the plates and then beamed back at her daughter. "Let's talk," she said.

Marissa moved hastily to the other side of the table and sat, shoveling pancakes, waffles, and bacon onto her plate. "Thanks for this."

"Anytime, Sweetie," Julie assured her, taking her own limited amount of starches from the plates before her. This wasn't a part of her diet, but Marissa had worked so hard. "So, what was this epiphany that you had?"

After chewing the bite of waffle in her mouth, Marissa looked up and pushed the flower vase aside to meet her mother's eye. Maybe it wouldn't be as hard as she thought it would be. "Well, I just think," she stopped and took another drink of water to gather her courage. A shot of vodka would be nice, but that wasn't part of the new, improved, "epiphanied" Marissa. "I feel like I owe some people some serious apologies, and I think I need to start with you."

She could barely swallow the coffee in her throat. Julie sputtered and then took a deep breath. "Me? For what?"

Another smile. Marissa was flashing that thousand-watter left and right. It was enough to make her mother happy and suspicious all at the same time. "I have been pissed at you for so long," she said honestly, watching her mother's face fall. "And last night I realized how unfair that is."

"Well, since we're being honest, Marissa, I've done some pretty selfish things," Julie admitted. And the honesty actually made her feel a little better.

Especially when Marissa shook her head and put her fork onto her plate. "True," she agreed, but went on. "But love's not just about the good times, when you let me have my way and give me what I want, Mom. It's about the bad, too – about enduring and persevering," she said with a wisdom far greater than her own eighteen years. She leaned forward on her elbows and held her mother's eyes in her own. "All I have ever wanted from you, Mom, was to know you loved me even when my jewelry didn't exactly go with my dress, or even if my boyfriend was from Chino."

The plea for love made Julie's heart break. Did she really believe that her mother didn't love her? Could that be true? "Marissa," she started to ensure the girl that her motivation had always been love.

But Marissa wasn't ready to listen yet. "It's okay, Mom," she said, reaching across the table to touch Julie's hand. She hadn't meant to, thought they would get into some kind of fight, but Marissa really felt like she needed a hand to hold, and she wanted that hand to be her mother's. "It's just who you are. And I realized, last night on the beach, that if I am going to expect that from you, I have to give you the same." Julie nibbled on a piece of bacon with her free hand and thought about the appropriate words at a time like this. That's when Marissa spoke the words that Julie Cooper had been waiting to hear her entire life – from anyone. "If you never change, Mom, I am going to love you anyway."

The tears began to flow down Julie's cheeks before she could stop them. She wanted to stop them. If Marissa was mad at her, then Julie could blame her for the temper tantrums, the drinking binges, and the shop lifting. She could focus her energy on the bad seed that her daughter had become, and she didn't have to focus on the manipulative bitch that she herself had turned into somewhere between Riverside and Newport Beach. "Um," she started.

But Marissa just let go of her hand, walked around the table, and knelt at the side of her chair. "I'm not promising I'm never gonna get pissed at you again or anything. But I promise no more silent treatment, and no more acting out." And then she wrapped her arms around Julie's neck and hugged her, tight.

Julie hugged back until she thought her arms might break. She had never held on to anyone so tightly – never wanted to keep hanging on so badly in her life. "Marissa, I don't know what to say," she stuttered. It was a lot to wrap her head around – a complete about-face in one night? Was she still dreaming? Maybe she would wake up and find Marissa naked, in bed with Connor or Alex or one of the others.

Marissa pinched her shoulder, as if she could read her mind. "Then don't say anything. We don't have to be best friends or anything. We don't even have to spend hours shopping together or pretending that we're a happy family like the Cohens," she smiled, standing and going back to her side of the table. "I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry for how I've been acting the last couple of," she stopped, considered, and then laughed, "well, years. But I promise that I will be easier to live with from now on. Or I will try to be, at least."

Julie tried to process the events of the morning, but she just couldn't. Thirty minutes ago, she was running through the topics of conversation that she was sure would break Connor and Marissa up, and now she was accepting an apology from her daughter. And she knew, deep down in a place she kept buried and hidden, that she didn't deserve the forgiveness Marissa was offering. "Sweetie, why don't you go get some sleep? I'll clean this up."

Marissa started to protest, but then stood, dropping a kiss on her mother's cheek before moving quickly out of the dining room and toward the stairs. When Connor's mom had begged her to stop leading the boy on, to just break up with him if she didn't feel the same about him as he did about her, she had gone defensive. But when Priscilla Matthews gave her a hug, told her that she would never be happy until she let go of the bitterness and anger that she held on to, and started to extend, and accept, forgiveness, she felt like an anvil had been lifted from her soul.

She had driven to the beach, spent the rest of the night figuring out all of the people that she was angry with, or who were angry with her. She made a list, now tucked safely inside the diary on her dresser, and then formed a game plan of how to make things right with all of them. Her mom had been first on the list, and that seemed to go pretty well. Now all she had left was Luke, Seth, Summer, her dad, Caleb, and Ryan. Maybe not in that order.

She cast a look at her tired reflection. Summer would forgive her for wiggin' – no questions asked. And Seth would be fine, if Summer was. Her dad would probably weep with her over the phone and tell her that he had already forgotten the hell she put him through, and Luke would shrug it off. He would probably even say he deserved it. Caleb was a bit of a wild card – he could go either way. But Marissa was learning that the response to her true confessions wasn't important at all – well, not much. What was important was saying the things that she had kept bottled up inside for so long, letting them go for good.

And nobody deserved a longer, more sincere apology than Ryan.

A/N: This chapter turned out to be a little fluffier than I had originally intended. But I felt like, in order to redeem Marissa to myself, she needed to learn something and grow. Sorry if it made you nauseous or anything.