Title : Small Steps

Author : Helen C.

Rating : PG - 13

Summary : Oliver is back, and makes a mess of things again. Set in season 2.

Spoilers : Everything that's been aired up to The Rainy Day Women is fair game.

Disclaimer : The characters and the universe were created and are owned by Josh Schwartz. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Many, many thanks to Joey51, who beta'd this for me!

Chapter 8 : The Atwood Philosophy

Ryan sat up with a gasp, the blast of the gunshot still echoing in his mind.

This abrupt way of awakening had become so usual to him that it only took him a few seconds to remember that he was safe, at the Cohens', and that Oliver was dead—and buried by now.

The sun was streaming in through the half-open blinds. Ryan squinted against the brightness. He had never been prone to nightmares, which was a small blessing considering the life he'd had, but he was making up for lost time this week.

On the plus side, this time he hadn't dreamt about the cops shooting him when they entered Marissa's room. That specific nightmare had come earlier in the week, and it had been particularly unsettling. Ryan was sure he would break into a cold sweat every time he saw a uniform for months now. "Tell me again about Pavlov dogs," he thought.

He shook himself. He needed a shower. Then he'd find Seth, and let his babbling erase the bad memories and the last remnants of the dream.

Ryan freed himself from the covers and headed to the bathroom, trying to keep his mind firmly focused on the task at hand, and not on Oliver's eyes, and the horror in them when he'd died.

8888888

Kirsten sighed in relief when Sandy marched into her office. The morning had been difficult—her first day back, after what had been an exhausting vacation. It seemed that no one had dared to take the slightest initiative in her absence, especially since her dad wasn't around either.

After a morning spent returning calls and reading the latest reports, she was more than ready for a break.

"Tell me it's noon," she begged when Sandy's cheerful "Hi, honey!" tore her attention away from the contract she was studying.

"It's noon," Sandy said, smiling widely. He held up the containers in his hands. "I thought we could eat here. Unless you want to go out."

She shook her head. "Oh, I'm too tired to move."

"Excellent." He dropped into a chair, and they shared the food while making small talk.

Kirsten loved her job, even when it was exasperating. It was challenging, it was interesting, it gave her wonderful opportunities to satisfy her competitive side, and she appreciated her home even more after a long day at the office.

Now, if only first days back weren't such a pain…

Sandy nodded when she said so. "Ah, yes, the universal first day curse," he said.

"Yeah." She took a mouthful of chicken. "I wish I was less tired."

"The last few days have been hard," Sandy acknowledged.

"Tell me about it."

Sandy looked almost as tired as she felt. "Is it me or is there always something happening?" he asked.

She took her time to answer. "I guess so."

"It seems to always be one crisis after the other, in our jobs and at home…" He sighed. "When it's not your father, it's my mother. Then it's Seth and his girls or Ryan and his need to save people. I mean, we keep trying to make him relax around us, and every time he seems more at ease, something happens, and we're back to square one."

She looked at him disbelievingly. "Either you're exaggerating," she said, "Or you've totally forgotten what square one was like."

At Sandy's doubtful look, she added, "Honey, he's neither as quiet nor as reserved as he used to be. Not even after what happened. He's doing the best he can." She reached over her desk and took Sandy's hand in her own, squeezing briefly. "And so are we."

"And yet, we're not doing a very good job," Sandy said.

Kirsten gritted her teeth. Sandy had been particularly difficult since the night Oliver had died—always second-guessing everything he did, everything he said, and pretty much everything that had happened since Ryan had entered their lives. At first, she had thought he was just reacting to Oliver's death and to the fact that Ryan could very well have been killed, but she was beginning to think that there was more to it than that.

Time to get to the root of the problem, she decided. "Sandy, what is it really about?"

"What do you mean, 'what is it about?'" Sandy asked indignantly. "Have you been paying attention to what's been happening?"

Kirsten nodded. "Yes, I have," she said. "And what I've noticed is that the situation could have been a thousand times worse for all concerned. I haven't seen anything warranting such…" She gestured vaguely in Sandy's direction. "Things are not so bad. Ryan is doing reasonably well, under the circumstances. You said yourself that he talked to you. And we know he had a long discussion with Luke." She took a breath and finished, "So, what is it really about?"

There was a long silence, while Sandy's face went from indignant to blank, then to sad before settling on scowling. "He was supposed to be safe," Sandy said at last. "He wasn't supposed to be put into this kind of situation here. When we took him in, I wanted to give him a break from the violence—domestic or otherwise."

He stood up and began to pace the office. "There were fistfights, he almost died in a fire, there have been three gun incidents that we know about, Marissa and alcohol, Marissa and drugs, and that's just the stuff he told us about. He spent his summer working on a construction site to support his pregnant girlfriend, for God's sake!" Sandy stopped wearing the carpet thin and turned to Kirsten. "How is this life different than the one he had before?"

"A great deal different, I suspect," she said reasonably. "But you'd have to ask Ryan if you want to be sure."

Sandy sighed. "Somehow, I don't think he's ready for that discussion," he said.

"Probably not," Kirsten acknowledged. There were lots of discussions Ryan wasn't ready for. Everyone knew that—including Ryan, Kirsten suspected. Sandy was right—there was always a crisis to deal with.

"Things will calm down, eventually," she said. "They have to."

888888

Ryan called Trey back while Seth was looking for a DVD to watch—which would take a while, since Seth didn't seem to have any idea what he wanted to watch.

In the meantime, Ryan listened as Trey ranted and insulted him every two words for hanging up the previous day. Once Ryan was sure Trey had finished, he said, "Sorry."

He heard Trey breathe heavily on the other side of the line. "How are you?" Trey asked then, his voice calmer.

Ryan shrugged automatically, seeing no need to revisit his reaction to their last talk. "Okay, I guess."

"Yeah. I'm… I was maybe a little blunt…"

Ryan almost smiled at Trey's flustered mumblings. "It's okay," he said. He almost told Trey that he hadn't been expecting tact when he had called but he decided against it. "Why did you have to call the Cohens?" he asked instead. Ryan couldn't help but feel a little self-conscious as he wondered what his brother and his foster family might have talked about.

"I was calling you," Trey answered dryly, and Ryan heard a muttered "little fucker" added for good measure.

"Oh," he said.

"But since you weren't there, one of them took the call, and we talked a little. I asked how you were. Sue me for being worried."

Ryan chuckled. "That won't be necessary."

They discussed some more—a few chosen words, long silences and grunts, because the Atwood brothers had long since devised their own communication method.

"You've got to stop feeling guilty for everything like that; it's getting annoying," was the brunt of Trey's message.

"That's what the Cohens keep telling me," Ryan said. "Without the annoying part."

"How about you listen to your older and wiser, huh?"

Ryan snickered. "Right."

"You did what you had to," Trey said. "The Good Boy to the rescue, as usual."

"I don't know about the good boy," Ryan admitted.

"Yeah, right," Trey said. "You've always been so damn perfect. Ma's good little boy, teacher's pet when you were a kid, always saving the damsel in distress… You're the first nice Atwood man in generations, Ry."

Ryan closed his eyes, letting Trey's words wash over him. The Cohens, too, seemed to think he was a nice person. It was implied in the fact that Sandy had taken him in, in the fact that Kirsten had deemed him "good enough" to be a part of her family.

They seemed convinced that he was just a good kid they had saved from a bad life.

They didn't know about the bottomless anger that used to fill Ryan back in Chino, that anger boiling just beneath the surface, always threatening to erupt.

They didn't know about the frustration he still felt at never being able to catch a fucking break. Ryan wasn't a whiner by any means, but every once in a while, he wondered what he had done to deserve such a crappy life—what he had done to deserve a past that was always following him, always coloring his reactions, his perceptions, his feelings.

Had he deliberately killed Oliver?

No.

He hadn't even wanted the guy to be hurt. He had wanted Oliver out of his life, not injured.

Not dead.

Would he be able to kill in cold blood?

He hoped not. He hoped he wasn't that kind of person. But sometimes, back in Chino, when he had looked at the losers who screwed his mother, who took her and Ryan's money to buy their booze, who hit him, he had felt so close to snapping, to losing control.

Granted, Ryan's life was better now. People in Newport may be annoying, but they hardly deserved Ryan's hatred—or of his anger.

However, Ryan hadn't forgotten what blind rage felt like. That hadn't been what he had felt That Night—what he had felt then was more like blind panic.

But that had been That Night.

What about next time?

What would it take to make him lose control?

He knew that if told, the Cohens would reassure him. Tell him he was good. Tell him he was better, stronger than he thought.

They didn't know what Ryan was capable of. Ryan himself didn't know what he was capable of.

And he was terrified of finding out.

"Ryan?" Trey insisted.

Ryan shook his head, annoyed at his brother—and also vaguely reassured. Perhaps he would lose control someday and do something he would regret—cross another line. But, for today, if Trey didn't think Ryan had screwed up, if Luke and the Cohens didn't think Ryan had screwed up, then perhaps, just perhaps, he hadn't.

Ryan sighed. Suddenly, it occurred to him that the reason he had called Trey was the same reason he had talked to Luke. Like Luke, when Trey thought that Ryan had screwed up, he said so. Clearly, unambiguously, bluntly.

Trey told Ryan the truth, not what Ryan needed to hear. And, unlike the Cohens, Trey knew all about rage and frustration, and about needing to vent, needing to punch things and people to avoid being consumed. If Trey didn't think Ryan had crossed that border yet, then Ryan was willing to defer to his judgment.

"Yeah," Ryan said at last.

"It sucks that it happened, bro', but then life sucks as a rule."

There it was—the Atwood philosophy, short and to the point. Life sucks. Deal with it. Ryan had never found the thought particularly comforting, but he had never been able to convince Trey, or even himself, that life was wonderful. "Yeah, I know," he said.

Seth came down from his room, waving a DVD box enthusiastically, and ranting, "I found it! This is perfect. Come on, man, we'll complete your audiovisual education. You'll love it."

"Oh boy," Ryan muttered.

Trey snickered. "That's the strange kid?"

"Uh huh."

"Good luck."

"I may need it," Ryan said, warily eyeing the box in Seth's hands.

"Is that your brother?" Seth asked.

Ryan rolled his eyes. "Yep."

"Oh. Er, tell him I said hi?"

"He can hear you, Seth," Ryan pointed out. "You're like two feet from me. I'm calling Chino, not New Zealand."

"Right."

Trey was laughing on the other side of the line. "I'll go," he said. "Take care."

"You too," Ryan said.

There was a small pause, during which all Ryan could hear on the line was Trey's breathing. Then Trey hung up. Ryan smiled. His brother would never have said so, but that small pause, in Trey-Talk, meant something like, "Glad you're still alive and stay that way."

And the truth was, as much as Ryan felt bad about killing someone, as much as he suspected that he would always remember That Night, he was glad to be alive too.

That was yet another thing he had spent a lot of time thinking about.

That gun being waved in his face had made him realize that he didn't want to die. There were still pretty girls to meet, things to learn, books to finish, stories to hear, people to see again. Life may suck, and be unfair, but there were props, too.

Seth was looking at him uncertainly. "We can do that later," he offered.

Ryan shook his head. "No way," he said. "It's fine. I just needed to talk to him."

"He called the 'rents," Seth said. "They didn't tell me why."

"Good for them," Ryan said, with an I-know-something-you-don't smile.

"Oh. And now you're going to hold on to that information, and I'll have to badger you, and then you'll glare, and I'll shiver, and I'll—"

Ryan cut him off, wondering how Seth could talk so much, so fast, all the time. "I hung up on him while we were talking about Oliver. I guess he was worried." He took the box from Seth's hands. "Babylon 5?" he said, eyebrows raised. "I didn't know you were into Sci-Fi shows."

Ryan braced himself as Seth took a deep pre-lecture breath. "I'm usually not. And it's a good thing, 'cause that way, you have your thing with all the geekiness and nerdiness of science-fiction, and, indeed, science itself, and I have my thing, with the graphic novels, which makes us unique individuals. But, anyway, this is a great story. The story of people who don't get along, but must learn to—"

Ryan raised a finger to interrupt him. "Let me guess, they must learn to work together and to look past their differences in order to save the world," he said.

"Oh, you know the show?"

Ryan laughed. "I'm from Chino, not Mars," he said. "I didn't really watch it, but I heard of it, yes." He didn't add that even if he hadn't, he'd still have been able to guess, because Seth seemed to be addicted to this particular kind of story.

"Well, let me introduce you to this wonderful, epic tale then," Seth said, leading the way to the couch.

Ryan followed, amused. "I don't think I've done anything but laze around this holiday," he said.

"You deserve it," Seth replied. "Besides, it's the last break we'll have before the Finals Of Doom."

Ryan groaned. "You know, I had almost forgotten about that."

Seth fumbled with the remote, and found the beginning of the first episode. "If that's what it takes to forget," he said, "I'm almost happy I didn't."

Ryan grunted in agreement.

"Almost," Seth said, as he sat back.

Ryan spent the next two hours absorbing all the knowledge Seth had gathered on Babylon 5—and, by extension, science-fiction shows, the way they were perceived by the general public, and how Sci-Fi related to comic books, as did everything in life.

It was only when Sandy came back from work that Ryan realized he hadn't thought about Oliver since his call to Trey.

"Good afternoon?" Sandy asked.

Seth took a breath and paused in his babbling to greet his father, then went on. Ryan smiled and nodded. "Great," he said. Meaning it.

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