Title: Older and Wiser

Summary: In episode 1.25 The Shower, what if Ryan listened to Sandy sooner and didn't drive off with the intention of going to Chino and beating up Eddie?

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to The O.C. No profit is taken from this story.

Author's Notes: This is how I wish the scene in the parking lot at the country club would have ended (where Sandy was trying to convince Ryan not to drive off in Marissa's SUV to Chino to kick Eddie's ass for hitting Theresa). And what I imagine might have happened afterwards if it did.

"Get out of the car."

"He's done it before, you know that?"

"Well, that's the pattern with these things."

"Means he'll do it again."

"Don't try to fix this thing, kid. I am your guardian, and I get to call the shots. Now, get out of the car."

"Somebody has to stop him."

"Theresa has to decide on her own to leave Eddie. We can't force her."

"I know about these things. Theresa. Eddie. Chino. You don't get it."

"Oh, yes, I do. I've seen way too many kids just like him, and I know that it's not gonna be you to suddenly make him change."

Sandy watched as Ryan reacted to his words. He looked away from Sandy and stared straight ahead, through the windshield. He was gripping the steering wheel tightly with both hands, like a death grip. Sandy waited, hopeful that he had finally gotten through to his young charge. It looked promising at least. Ryan wasn't getting out of the car, but at least he didn't start the car and drive away.

Sandy jumped when Ryan suddenly started pounding the steering wheel with his fist and uttering guttural cries of frustration.

It didn't last long, and Sandy knew that actually, it was a good thing. It meant that he had listened to Sandy, finally. It meant that he was frustrated. Frustrated because he wanted to go beat the living daylights out of Eddie, so badly, but he couldn't or at least wouldn't, because Sandy had talked him out of it. Sandy felt the relief wash over him.

As Sandy watched Ryan catch his breath after his outburst, he thought about what Ryan said, about him not understanding about Theresa and Eddie and Chino. Sandy might not have experienced what Ryan had, but he saw a lot when he was working in the public defender's office. Maybe Ryan had forgotten that. Well, he just reminded him. And it looks like it worked.

After giving Ryan a few more moments to calm down, Sandy took a chance and carefully opened the car door. Ryan didn't move.

"Ryan? Ryan, come on. Let's go."

Sandy reached out slowly, so Ryan wouldn't misinterpret his actions, and put his hand loosely around Ryan's wrist and tugged gently, trying to get him to let go of the steering wheel. Ryan did. Then after a quick glance at Sandy and taking a deep breath, he let go with his other hand as well. He took Marissa's keys out of the ignition, then got out of the car slowly, without saying a word or looking directly at Sandy again. His first words were said after he got out and noticed the driver's side door.

"Oh – the window."

Sandy looked and saw that the window was still open. He'd forgotten about that. Sandy held out his hand to Ryan for the keys.

"I'll take care of it."

Ryan looked at Sandy's hand, then quickly up to his face, and back at his hand again. After a moment, he reluctantly handed over the keys to the SUV, like he was giving up something important, something that he didn't want to give up. And Sandy supposed that he was. He was essentially at that point giving in and agreeing not to go after Eddie.

Sandy offered Ryan a little smile. "Thank you."

Ryan nodded, looked down, and turned away from Sandy.

Sandy quickly climbed into the driver's seat and put the keys into the ignition to turn the power on enough to be able to operate the power windows. He put up the window, then got out, shut the door, and used the remote control on the keychain to enable the car alarm. As he put Marissa's keys in his pocket, he made a mental note to remember to get them back to her later.

While Sandy was doing all that, Ryan leaned back against the side of the car, crossed his arms, and waited. He was still angry. He still wanted to just go and beat the crap out of Eddie. He had hurt Theresa. Repeatedly. Just thinking about it made Ryan's blood boil.

As he listened to Sandy putting up the car window, he thought about what he had been about to do. He was going to Chino for two reasons. One was to try and protect Theresa from ever having it happen to her again. But the other reason was to punish Eddie. To make him feel what Theresa had felt.

He had listened to what Sandy said. And he was right. Going and talking to Eddie, or kicking his ass, wouldn't change anything. Maybe Eddie would lay off for a while, but sooner or later, he would get drunk or pissed off and hit Theresa again, and Ryan wouldn't be there to stop him. Ryan closed his eyes for a moment, the memories of seeing other men in his life hitting other women in his life threatening to overwhelm him briefly, until he got it under control.

And just because Sandy was right about him not being able to make Eddie change (and those kind of people never changed, he knew from experience), it didn't mean that Ryan didn't still want to head over there and find Eddie and hurt him. Badly. For what he did. And what he would do in the future. But Ryan knew he couldn't. He sighed and stared off into the distance, trying not to think about it, and failing, completely.

"Ryan."

Ryan looked over at Sandy. He was standing next to the closed driver's side door. Apparently he had finished his task while Ryan was deep in his own thoughts. Sandy indicated to follow him, and so he did, until he figured out where they were going, at which point he stopped dead in the middle of the parking lot.

When Sandy noticed that Ryan wasn't following any more, he stopped and turned back to look for him. He was a little ways back, just standing there, his arms crossed in front of him again.

"Ryan?"

When Sandy looked at him, Ryan looked down and shifted his feet. "I don't want to go back to the party, the shower. I... I can't."

"I understand." Sandy looked over at the club and considered his options. There had to be somewhere... After a minute, he turned back to Ryan. "Come on, I have an idea."

Sandy started walking towards the club again, encouraging Ryan to come along. After a brief hesitation, Ryan slowly followed. Sandy stopped and waited at the doors of the club for Ryan to catch up to him. His attention was drawn briefly by some partygoers passing by, talking and laughing. He did understand why Ryan didn't want to go back to the shower. With everything that was going on, he wasn't really in the mood for a party, either. Especially not one for the gruesome twosome.

Sandy looked back at Ryan, who was still walking across the parking lot. When Sandy had seen Ryan rushing towards the parking lot earlier, he knew what Ryan was up to. Despite Ryan's assurance that morning that they "understood each other", really meaning that Ryan understood that Sandy was telling him not to go to Chino to see Eddie, Sandy didn't really believe him. Not that he thought Ryan was lying, he just didn't think that Ryan could resist the urge.

So he had let Seth know that he told Ryan not to go to Chino, hoping that maybe he could do something if anything came up. And he himself had kept an eye out for Ryan the entire day, expecting that he might pull a stunt like this. Hoping that he wouldn't, but expecting that he would. And he was right. Sandy sighed. Well, at least he was able to catch up to Ryan before he left and was able to stop him.

When Ryan reached the club doors, Sandy smiled and patted him on the back, then led him down to where his idea was: the club's exercise/weight room. They had weights, treadmills, stationary bikes, a punching bag, and other things. Sandy was glad to see that there was nobody there, so they would have the place to themselves.

Sandy stopped just inside the doorway and swept his arm around the room. "Well? What do you think?"

Ryan smirked at Sandy. "You want me to take out my frustrations on inanimate objects? Is that it?"

Sandy smiled back. "That's it, kid. We could hang out here, or if you want, we could probably go and find some golf balls to hit..."

"No, no, here's good."

Sandy nodded, pleased with himself. This was a good idea, if he did say so himself.

Sandy hung back as Ryan walked around the room checking out the machines and stuff. He stopped by the punching bag and inspected the boxing equipment that was there. After a minute, he pulled on some boxing gloves and started hitting the punching bag, not very hard at first, but then with more power as he got into it. Sandy didn't know anything about boxing, but he'd seen boxing movies, so he went over to hold the bag for Ryan so it wouldn't swing as he punched it.

It was harder work that it looked like in the movies. He almost got knocked off his feet until he got the hang of it. He did enjoy, though, watching Ryan close up, taking out his frustrations on the bag. It seemed to be working. After a little while, Ryan seemed to calm down some, and wasn't punching so hard, so it was easier to hold the bag. Sandy figured that it was probably a good time to say something more to Ryan.

"You know, Ryan, I do know how you feel."

Ryan quickly glanced at Sandy, and then looked back at the punching bag, frowning as he threw another punch.

"Really. You remind me a lot of myself when I first started at the PD's office. Practically every case that I got, I wanted to fix things. I wanted to make everything better. And I tried. And sometimes it worked, but often it didn't. I learned the hard lesson that if someone doesn't want to be helped, if they refuse to leave the bad situation, or refuse to press charges, then there's nothing you can do."

Ryan didn't say anything, he just kept punching the bag, but Sandy could tell that he was listening, so he pressed on.

"I understand your frustration. Believe me. I was frustrated a lot in those early years when I couldn't help someone. But once in a while, every once in a while, you can help, you can make a difference in someone's life. That's what kept me at the PD's office all those years."

Sandy smiled when Ryan looked at him briefly and gave him a little embarrassed smile before going back to his boxing. He knew that Sandy was talking about him.

"I do understand how much you care about Theresa and how much it hurts you that Eddie has been hitting her. I understand your desire to go and get even, to punish him for what he's done. But you have to believe me, I know from experience, that won't help anything."

Ryan kept punching as he replied curtly, "I get it, Sandy. Okay? I get it."

Sandy sighed. "Okay."

Sandy sensed that Ryan wasn't in the mood for listening any more. And he wanted to give him time to think about what he said. So he let go of the punching bag and started to head for the door.

"Um, I'm gonna go and give Marissa back her keys and let Kirsten know where we are." Ryan nodded and kept punching. "You'll be okay here by yourself?"

Ryan stopped boxing and turned to look at Sandy. Apparently he heard the unspoken question in Sandy's voice. "Yes. I'll be here. I'm not going anywhere. Promise."

Sandy gave him a relieved smile. "Okay, then. Um, I'll be back."

After Sandy left, Ryan went back to punching the heavy bag. Yeah, he got it. Sandy was older. Punch. And wiser. Punch. And he understood because he'd been where Ryan was now. Punch. Except now he had more experience. Punch. And he knew more. Punch. And so Ryan should listen to him. Blah, blah, blah...

Ryan smiled to himself. He hated it when all of that was really true and Sandy was really right. Damn.

As Ryan continued to box, he thought through the last hour or two. Now that he was calmer, he knew he needed to have some conversations with some people. He really owed Seth an apology for nearly threatening him when he tried to stop him from going to Chino. He was just trying to help, just trying to keep Ryan out of trouble, and he didn't deserve how Ryan talked to him. And Marissa, he owed her an apology, too. She was going through a lot, what with her mother marrying Caleb and Caleb blackmailing her and all. And Ryan had told her he'd be there for her, and he wasn't.

But mostly, he needed to talk to Theresa, again. While he agreed with Sandy that he couldn't force her to leave Eddie, that didn't mean he couldn't try again to convince her to leave him. And that's what he intended to do. When he got the chance.

Ryan had stopped boxing and was just about to head up to the shower to try and find Theresa when Sandy returned. He had waited as long as he could for Sandy to get back, knowing that if he didn't find Ryan there when he did, he'd panic. But finally, Ryan had run out of patience and was going to head up there anyway, hoping to catch Sandy up there as well, to let him know where he was. But luckily, he didn't have to do that, because Sandy arrived.

With Theresa.

He showed her into the exercise room, and then left right away, telling them, "I'll leave you guys alone to talk. I'll be at the shower. Ryan, come find me before you leave, okay?"

Without taking his eyes off of Theresa, he replied to Sandy. "Yeah, okay."

Sandy smiled and ducked out.

For a long minute, they both stood there, awkwardly, not saying anything. Finally Theresa spoke up.

"I thought you'd be in Chino by now."

"I realized Eddie wasn't who I needed to talk to." He looked at Theresa for a moment. "What the hell are you doing going back to him?"

"It's not gonna happen again. He promised me."

"Sure, just like he promised the last time, right?"

"What am I supposed to do? My whole life is in Chino."

"So was mine."

"Right, okay. So, what, I wait for some rich perfect family to adopt me and stick me in their beautiful pool house? Great idea."

"No, you can stay with the Cohens, too"

"No, I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because... I move in there and then what happens?"

"I don't know...I don't know, but I know what happens if you go back to Eddie... So do you."

After a long moment, Theresa finally took a deep breath and looked into Ryan's eyes. "Okay."

Ryan smiled. "Okay? Okay. Great. Let's go find Sandy."

Theresa was hesitant. "Are you sure this is going to be okay with him? Him and Kirsten?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. Don't worry about it. Really. Let's go."

Ryan led Theresa out of the exercise room to go find Sandy. He looked at her and smiled. He was happy. Theresa wasn't going to go back to Eddie. This was all going to work out. Everything was going to be fine. He knew it.

The End.