Fix You

Author's Note: Pay attention to the lyrics of the song as of the second part of the last chapter because lines used will be relevant to something that happens in the chapter. You'll understand better when I get to it. Right now, thanks for the kind words and on with the story!

Chapter 6: Same

High up above or down below
When you too in love to let it go

Seth searched for Marissa through the crowd of up tight, snobby Newport residents. Summer had left him to join her husband, and he had lost both his own wife and his parents. The only three people he could trust to be there for him and understand how much he hated coming to these functions. Usually, Marissa was right by his side, or being held hostage by the mini-Julie Cooper clones that were her friends, tonight he had a feeling that things would be different.

Sure enough, they were.

It seemed he wasn't the only one to have reverted back to teenage years. Marissa Cooper had once been known as an almost alcoholic. Actually, Seth knew very well that she had been an alcoholic, but for almost seven years she had barely touched a drink. Tonight though, she was sitting at the bar looking much like she had after one of their first fights thirteen years before on their road trip.

Seth frowned, surely the reappearance of Summer was not the only reason for Marissa's sudden urge to go on a drinking binge, but Seth never judged her. In fact, if this had been thirteen years earlier, he would've left her to her own devices and just waited for her to come home. Now though, they were married and had kids and they were the golden couple of Newport that no one had ever expected to make it.

"Okay Marissa," Seth wrapped his arm around her waist, "Next time, we're skipping the Newport drama and watching Peter Pan lay the smack down on Captain Hook with our favorite person in world, who luckily has no idea that her life is going to be a bunch of boring parties where everyone talks behind her back and wants to bring her down."

Marissa didn't respond. Instead, she just leaned against Seth and let him lead her where he wanted. This surprised him because usually she put up a fight. Seth sighed, not really used to playing the cavalry. That had always been Ryan's job.

Out of the corner of his eye then, Seth caught sight of a shorter blonde man talking with his parents. He was dressed in jeans and a black shirt, and suddenly Seth wanted a drink himself even though he knew that him and drinking never really got along. In fact, the last time he had gotten drunk, he had been arrested.

"God, Newport would make an awesome soap opera," he mumbled to himself, leading Marissa out of the party. If only he could buy the rights to make a movie, he was sure it would be a blockbuster hit. Hell, a TV show would be even better. He could imagine the millions people wanted to watch the life of the right in the OC.

He had thought things had changed since fourteen years ago, since seven years ago, but they were the same. Nothing had changed; it had just been delayed, pushed back in their minds. The past fourteen years, seven of which he and Marissa had been married for, had been nothing but the calm before the storm.

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones

Newport seemed the same as when Ryan had last been there. They still held strange, black tie events at least once a week, the people were all the same, possibly slightly older, Julie Cooper could still send shivers down his spine by glaring from across the room, and Marissa Cooper, it seemed, was the same as she had been when Ryan had known her at seventeen.

After his brief encounter with her, he had walked off to find Kirsten and Sandy. He wasn't here to relive the two years of his life that he had been in Newport, he was here to try and decide what they were going to do now that Seth and Cass were likely to investigate into who the other was. That their two worlds were about to collide.

Seeing Marissa again had almost made him wish that it was fifteen years earlier and he was in Newport for the first time and living with the Cohens. He remembered his first few weeks in Orange County, he remembered the events and how he had been the outcast, how Marissa had immediately caught his eyes. When he saw the shimmer of the gold ring on her finger though, he reminded himself how much things had changed.

They were both married, to other people.

He found Kirsten and Sandy, after almost an hour, in what appeared to be an argument with each other. Right away, by the tone of Kirsten's voice, he knew it was about him. There was a mention of Seth's name right before they saw him. Kirsten paled, Sandy quickly welcomed him. He saw both their eyes flicker in the direction of the bar with looks of almost panic. Ryan followed their gaze, taking a sip of his drink as he did and saw his brother, Seth, wrap his arm around Marissa, who seemed slightly tipsy from all her drinks, and lead her out of the party.

What was going on? Seth was currently playing the role of Marissa's white knight. What about her husband? Ryan had told Seth to keep a lookout on Marissa after he had left, but he never thought that fourteen years later they would still be together, friends. After all, they were so completely different and they only reason they ever co-existed was because of him and Summer.

"Chino!" there was a flurry of motion out of the corner of his eye and when he turned he found Summer Roberts-Downey standing in front of him. They regarded each other for a moment, both having seen Seth and Marissa leave together, but he could already tell that Summer knew something he didn't.

After years of knowing her, he knew when she was keeping something from him. Summer had always and would always be a gossip queen who liked to spread whatever she knew to everyone that she knew, and whatever it was this time he knew was good.

Giving the Cohens a nod, one that told them he would stop by the house when he was done talking to Summer, he turned and followed the petite brunette out of the party. He saw her husband, who adored Summer, but had a bit of a wandering eye Ryan knew, was talking to someone near the bar, and it didn't seem like Summer cared too much either.

"Did you see Coop and Cohen?" Summer asked, once they were out of the party.

"I talked to Marissa," Ryan nodded, "Saw Seth leave with her."

"They're really CoopandCohen," she told him, stopping to look at him, "They're, like, all married now."

Ryan stopped as well, turning to look at Summer. His ears burned with the news. Seth had married Marissa. His Marissa. He couldn't believe it. Then again, he almost could. Ryan had always tried to avoid conversations about Seth and Marissa with Kirsten, and until a little over seven years ago, she had almost always tried to spoon feed him news. Casually slip something into a conversation about how Anna had come back to Newport and she and Seth had tried dating again, or how Marissa had been out with Luke and his girlfriend the other night but was still single.

It all made sense now.

"They've got two kids," Ryan filled the silence with words a realization that had just now set in. The kids that his daughter had seen with Kirsten and Seth, they weren't just Seth's children; they were Marissa's too. She had two kids, a girl and a boy.

Summer and Ryan caught each other's gazes then and Ryan hid a smirk at his ability to read Summer's mind just then, know exactly what his close friend was about to say.

"Cohen re-produced?" She said loudly, "At least they'll be somewhat cute because of Coop. God, this is so unreal. Then again, what did we think? They were going to sit around waiting for us to, like, leave our lives or something and come back to them."

Their gazes locked once again and Ryan knew that it was exactly what they had both thought, and it had been stupid to think like that. Ryan had chosen to raise his daughter with Theresa, create a life for his daughter that he had never had. There was no rationalization in his thinking that Marissa would spend the rest of her life waiting for him to come to his senses and return to her.

He had never stopped loving Marissa though, she had been a part of his life he cherished, she had been a part of the better life he had had the chance to live for a brief period of time before his real life, the life he had been born into came calling for him to come home.

Seeing Marissa again, he felt the same way he had fourteen years ago when he had left her.