A/N: Dude, you guys rock! I was like, I really want to get past 30 reviews and you got me all the way to 40! That's ten more than I was anticipating! You all kick major effing ass! You guys made my day, and thank you all sooooooooooooo much. Keep it up! When you all review, I get into 'yay happy review' mode and I like, immediately start the next chapter…which means… faster updates! For all of you confused: reviewsfast updates. Also, this chapter (besides the verdict) is a little bit fluffy. No drama, for once in this story , lol.

Lobs-StAcEy-Ters: Thank you so much for pointing those errors out. I was typing fast, trying to get all 10 pages done in one sitting (which didn't happen), and wasn't thinking. The whole Summer calling her Riss thing, see, my name is Marissa, and my friends call me Riss, so there you go. I reread it then and I was like, That doesn't sound right, but I really have to write more before Mom kicks me off the computer. So there you go. The think about him calling him Ry, I dunno, we already saw how sucky of a witness Seth is, lol. And I could personally like totally see Julie not saving her daughter. She's totally a cold-hearted bitch, in my view. I'm not trying to make excuses about any of this, just trying to explain what I was thinking a lil bit. I fixed Summer and Seth's nickname thing.

Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, you know the drill. I do not own the O.C, never have, never will, but I own whatever I write. I don't really think anyone's gonna steal a fanfiction, though, so that was just kinda pointless. Whatev.

"We the jury," the woman read off a sheet of paper. "find Marissa Cooper not guilty on the count of manslaughter."

Her clutch on Ryan's hand immediately released. "Oh my God," she said quietly.

Summer was up on her feet, dancing around excitedly. "Oh, my God, Coop, did you hear? You won! You won!"

"Yeah, I heard." Marissa said distractedly, watching as Summer began hugging everyone in sight. "Did you hear, Seth?"

"How could I not?"

"Shut up, stupid." Summer pulled him up to his feet and threw her arms around him. "She's free! Coop's free!" She let go and ran up to Kirsten and Sandy ("Did you hear?")

Ryan stood up, and Marissa followed suit.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, of course, I'm really happy," she said emotionlessly.

"You don't sound like it."

"I am, I'm just kind of… having trouble grasping things. It all happened so quickly…" She smiled up at him, hoping to convince him of her happiness.

"If you say so…."

They walked over to Sandy and Kirsten, who were looking amused at the still ecstatic Summer.

"Thanks." Marissa said to Sandy. "You saved my life."

Sandy grinned. "Anytime, kid."

Seth put an arm around Summer's shoulder. "Summer, calm down. It is way too early in the morning to bounce around like we have springs in our feet."

"Seth, my best friend just got acquitted of murder. Manslaughter. Whatever. I have the right to be happy!"

"Why don't we go out to celebrate?" Sandy suggested.

"Sure," Seth said, with a glance at Summer, "but please, nothing with sugar in it."

"Seth, I am not hyper. I am happy. Sugar will not have an effect on me." Summer rolled her eyes.

"Yeah. Sure."

"It's true!"

The couple continued to bicker, until they stepped out of the courtroom doors, and were immediately blinded by the flash of photographer's cameras.

"Marissa! Tell us, how does it feel to be free?" A microphone was shoved under her nose.

"Marissa! Do you think that you should have testified?" Another microphone was waiting at her mouth.

"Marissa? Was it frightening, being on trial?"

"Marissa!"

"Marissa!"

She started to walk away, but they kept calling her name. "Marissa! Marissa!"

She turned around sharply. "What!"

Sandy cleared his throat. "What Ms. Cooper means to say is, she'd be happy to answer all your questions in a few minutes.

Marissa waited on a bench outside the copy room for about ten minutes, until Sandy ushered her into a room that she had never seen. A long table filled most of it, and reports sat squished on little chairs, up and down each side of the table. She noticed at the back of the room, Summer was posing for a shot from the cameramen, and talking to some reporters at the same time. ("Marissa and I have been best friends forever.") Seth and Ryan were looking equally uncomfortable, standing awkwardly on the side of the room, talking in whispered sentences.

Sandy motioned for her to take the seat at the head of the table.

"Um, hi," she said, sitting down. "Sandy, what is this?"

"I guess if you stretched it, you could call it a press conference. Just answer whatever they ask you."

Marissa had been unhappy with the fact that news people were following her all over the courtroom, and she wasn't overjoyed at the fact that she would have to actually talk to them.

"Marissa," one reporter called, standing up. "Were you surprised that your mother testified against you?" He pointed his microphone at her.

"Um," she said. "I guess."

"Could you elaborate?"

"I was surprised that that she testified at all, but I can't say that I was surprised that she wasn't on my side." She hurried her answer; this was not something that she wanted to last a long time.

"Ms. Cooper." Another reporter stood up as the last one sat down. "Is your boyfriend upset with you, for killing his brother?"

Reporters sure don't beat around the bush, she thought, as she replied that no, Ryan was not angry with her.

The news conference last, to Marissa's displeasure, about an hour and a half. Just when she would think that they couldn't possibly have another question to ask her, they did. Of course.

Finally, after answering that no, she didn't believe in capital punishment, they ran out of things to ask her, and slowly left.

Summer appeared by her side. "That was fun!" she said brightly.

Marissa rolled her eyes. "I'm hungry," she said, realizing that she hadn't eaten dinner last night or breakfast this morning.

"Me too. I'm starved." Seth said.

"Cohen, you had like, three bagels and a banana this morning. How could you possibly eat any more?"

Seth draped his arm around his girlfriend's shoulder. "See, Summer, you are a girl."

"No shit."

"Girls," Seth continued, as if he hadn't heard her. "always eat as little as possibly so they can stay ridiculously skinny, or whatever. We men, we eat when we feel like it. Which is often. Like now."

"Since when are you a man?"Summer scoffed.

"Ever since I was thirteen. When I had my Bar Mitzvah, I became a man. Which mean I can eat whenever I want. Let's go find food!"

The rest of the summer went as normally as one could expect a group of teens about to start their senior year in high school, specifically a pregnant girl who just got acquitted of murder, a not-pregnant girl who was going to have to be acquitted of murder if her boyfriend mentioned his stupid new video game with the Death Cab soundtrack one more time, a boy who was trying to avoid having to shop with his girlfriend for baby clothes and furniture, and a boy who sat on his ass all day and played an talked about his new video game with the Death Cab soundtrack.

In mid-August, Marissa took Summer to her first doctor appointment for the baby, where they discovered Marissa had a healthy child growing in her. She refused to know the gender of the baby, although she let the doctor tell Summer the sex of the child.

The day before they were to head back to school, Marissa studied herself in the mirror. She hadn't really begun to show yet, after all she was only three months pregnant, but if someone were to get suspicious… she didn't want to start out they year being known as a slut. She wasn't sure how she would handle it when she really started to show: she had never been alone in her life. From the day she stepped into preschool, she had been known as one of The Group. She had always wondered, though, if things would have turned out differently if she hadn't smushed her chocolate cake into Michael Reynolds face however. No one liked him back then, and he had dropped out of school last year. Marissa knew if it hadn't been for her, he would have never been pegged as an outcast. She felt awful about it now; it was such a bitchy thing to do. Her stomach hurt just thinking about it.

She realized, ten minutes later, after coming out from puking her brains out in the bathroom, that that may have not been the reason she was feeling nauseous.

Kirsten, who had recently arrived back from the facility for good, put a motherly arm around her shoulder as she wiped her mouth with a Kleenex.

"Welcome to morning sickness," she said sympathetically.

"That's stupid. It's four o'clock in the afternoon. That's not morning. They should call it all day sickness, or something." Marissa groaned. "This is going to suck. Throwing up is disgusting."

Kirsten sighed. She hadn't initially supported Ryan and Marissa's decision to keep their child, but as they had predicted, she respected it, and had been helping the inexperienced Marissa with baby shopping. "Want a Tylenol?" she asked. She remembered from when Marissa was a little girl that throwing up gave her a huge headache.

"Yeah," Marissa gave Kirsten a weak smile.

When she returned with the medicine, Marissa immediately grabbed the pills and swallowed them in a long drink from the cup of water she was holding.

"Thanks."

"No problem." Kirsten began to head for the stairs, but Marissa had a question.

"Kirsten?"

"Yeah," she said, turning around.

"What am I supposed to do if that happens while I'm in school?"

Kirsten furrowed her brow: she had no idea.

"Um…" she said, thinking. "I'll write you a note or something to give your teachers if you're feeling nauseous in class, alright?"

"Okay."

Marissa resumed studying her image in her mirror. Do they make designer maternity clothes?

A/N: Sorry for the short chapter, and like skipping their whole summer. I was not about to write like, fifteen for chapters taking you all through the rest of June, July, and August. The rest of the chapters will also be over the course of more than a day per chapter. I'm aiming for somewhere under a hundred chapters, LOL.

Also, I want everyone to help me think up baby names. Put your suggestions in your reviews, please. Give me boy and girl's names because want the gender to be a surprise. Who knows, maybe I'll see a name I like so much that I'll switch the kid's gender and use that name. If I pick yours you get… a free car! LOL, just kidding. I'll think of something.