Disclaimer: The O.C. is property of Fox.
Author's Note: It's been so long, even I can barely remember what I wrote. Thank you to everybody who kept encouraging me to keep going with this story.

"I am not what I have nor what I do;
But what I was I am, I am even I."

Christina Rossetti

Kirsten had long ago given up on the mysteries of life; aside from the occasional pot fuelled stupor, it was not as if she'd ever given them particular attention, so she did not consider it any great loss that she had never developed a personal philosophy for Why We Are Here and other such matters. She could care less about the grand narratives, they didn't interest her in the slightest, she was all about the small stuff. And hell, was she good at it. From business to home, her instincts were second to none. Kirsten knew Sandy was going to quit Public Defender's office before he did, she knew that Seth would eventually break Anna's heart and, as much as she had wanted to be wrong, her own too. So when she picked up the phone she just knew that it was Ryan on the other end; the silence was so him, she could practically see him there hunched over, as if embarrassed by his very existence. And when without a word he'd hung up on her, she knew something was horribly wrong.

Eighty miles away, Ryan glumly held on to the phone that now rested back on its cradle. It'd had taken him all of his courage to dial the Cohen's number, it had never occurred to him that it might not have been Sandy that answered. The sound of Kirsten's mellow voice had been so completely unexpected that he had lost his nerve and hung up without speaking. Confessing to Sandy was one thing, confessing to Kirsten was quite another, something that in all honesty he didn't think he could handle. Not without running a not inconsiderable risk of crying at any rate, and if Ryan had learned anything in the past year, it was that crying in a correctional facility was not something you wanted to be seen doing, no matter who you were or what the circumstances.

"You going to try again kid?"

Ryan stared at the phone in his hand, determinedly ignoring the officer guarding him as he tried to decide whether he had just made one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

"Kid? We don't have all day here."

"I know, okay?" Ryan snapped, without thought for manners or reason. Brilliant. Another mistake.

"Hey. A little respect, alright?"

"Sorry." Ryan replied automatically without contrition, before sighing to himself. He let go of the phone and turned to the officer. "I'm sorry. Really."

"Look whatever," said the officer with an irritation that Ryan could sense was not entirely directed at him. "I don't have time for indecision. Are you going to try again or not?"

"Yeah, okay." Ryan said finally. Taking a deep breath, he wiped his sweaty hands down the side of his jeans and reached for the phone again, nearly leaping out of his skin as it rang before him.

Without thought of asking permission, he reached for it, his breath shaky in apprehension even as he anticipated the voice on the other end, "Hello?"

"Ryan?"

Kirsten's voice flooded through him with warmth and kindness.

"Hi."

"Hey, sweetie. We were worried about you, I tried the house."

Ryan felt six years old again; unable to find the words he knew others wanted to hear from him and were waiting for.

"Ryan? Are you there?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm here."

"I wanted to tell you; whatever happened last night, it doesn't matter. Whatever was said last night doesn't matter. All that matters is that is that we love you and we're going to help you, okay? We're going to fix this. We're going to come down there and we're going to fix it."

"I'm so sorry, last night, what I said-"

"- It doesn't matter. We're going to start over. We're going to come down to the house and talk this out, properly, all of us."

"I'm not at the house."

"Are you at the building site? I thought you didn't work Sundays."

"I don't," said Ryan, disgusted with himself, that it had come to this, again. "When I got back something happened. Theresa- "

"- Are you alright? Is she alright? I mean, is it, it's not the baby-"

"God, no, it's not- no. The baby's fine, Theresa's she's fine, it's not like…" he stuttered and stumbled into silence, words without warning now an insurmountable obstacle. Sensing his frustration as keenly as she had sensed his phonecall minutes earlier, Kirsten pressed him gently.

"Ryan, please, whatever it is, it'll be okay, just tell me."

Bolstered by Kirsten's words of reassurance, words began to tumble out of Ryan like they would never stop. "When I got back, they were in the middle of packing all these CDs and DVDs, just boxes of them and I don't know where they got them, or who they were doing it for, but I knew nothing about it. I promise I didn't. And now Theresa's in trouble and Jay's saying that I planned the whole thing and I knew nothing, I promise, I just came back and found them- "

Making sense of Ryan's words, Kirsten's heart sank right through to the tile venue as they continued to fall desperately out of the phone. Suddenly she knew that there was a whole lot more to fix than just a teenager forced to play at being a man. More than that, she knew she couldn't let him play at it any longer.

"- Ryan? Stop. You need to slow down and tell me where you are."

"Chino. The police station."

As much as she tried to hide it, Ryan couldn't help but feel his insides knot in self-loathing as he heard Kirsten's fractional pause before she answered, the small sigh that preceded her words.

"Okay. Okay. You need to listen to me, okay? Can you do that?"

When he didn't answer, Kirsten did what she needed to and spoke sharply down the phone. "Ryan? Are you listening?"

Making a concerted effort to pull his focus in Ryan nodded as he answered. "I'm here."

"Have you been charged with anything?"

"No. Not yet."

Allowing herself a silent sigh of relief, Kirsten continued. "Alright then. Don't say anything until we get there, okay?"

"I'm so sorry, I never meant-"

"Hey, shh. It's going to be alright.

"But I-"

"- Ryan, it doesn't matter. Everything's going to be alright."

Finally and completely, Ryan laid down the last thread of his misplaced pride and chivalry before Kirsten and accepted the offer she and Sandy had made to him over a year before. "You promise?"

"I promise. We're coming. We'll fix it."

Sandy sat on his surfboard, the sun warm on his back, the constant rocking motion of the ocean beneath him calming his mind. He hadn't slept much last night, his finely honed Jewish guilt had kept his thoughts far too busy for that, and now he was so tired he'd wiped out almost every time he'd got up on the board. It was beginning to get embarrassing and the combination of the taste of salt water, his weariness, the guilt and the swell of the waves beneath him were beginning to make him feel sick.

"This is ridiculous," he muttered under his breath. Enough was enough. If Mohammed wouldn't come to the gated community, then the gated community would just have to go to him.

Surveying the approaching waves behind him, Sandy selected his ride and started to paddle for position. Feeling the water swell beneath him, Sandy planted his feet on his board with conviction and took the wave whole, as if he was driving the water home to shore rather than being driven by it. The wave fading, he tipped himself gently into the water, reached under the surface to detangle the leash from his ankle and walked determinedly on to the beach.

His gaze fixed on his feet, Sandy headed towards his car, his mind whirring with plans of action, each one as fragmented and flawed and discarded as quickly as the one before.

"Hey."

His concentration broken, Sandy stopped short as he recognized Kirsten sitting on the bonnet of the Land Rover, her own car parked perfectly next to it.

"Hey," Sandy replied, his voice reflecting the unexpected pleasure of seeing his wife at surfing time, even as he registered the worried frown on her face, the perfect mirror of his own. "You've not come for surfing lessons have you?"

"No," Kirsten replied with a tired smile, handing him the neatly folded towel from beside her.

"It's Ryan, isn't it?"

Kirsten nodded. The emotion of the last twenty-four hours, the last twenty-four days and more finally catching up with her, she inhaled sharply, as if she might cry.

"Hey, come on, " Sandy said gently, touching her arm gently before tucking her hair behind her ear, stroking the side of her face as he tried to exhibit a calmness he neither felt now nor had for many weeks. "Just tell me. Did something happen? Something else? He's not hurt, is he, or-"

Kirsten looked abruptly back at Sandy, who jerked his hand away in surprise at the sudden movement. "- God, no, he's not hurt. He's okay. But I can't do this anymore, Sandy. I won't. I want him home. I want both of them home." Her emotion raw and brittle, Kirsten reached for her husband's hand again, studying its roughened contours, sticky with sand as her eyes itched with tears unbidden. "You know that I love you. And I don't blame you for this summer anymore than I blame myself. But it's not home without them and I'm sick of pretending that it is."

"I know. Me too. You're right."

"He was arrested, last night."

"Dammit," Sandy snorted. "Fighting?"

Kirsten shook her head. "Video piracy. They all were-"

"- Dammit!"

Anger and frustration and inadequacy howled inside of him and he struck out, wrenching his hand from Kirsten and pounded the top of the Land Rover. "Dammit!"

Turning on the nearest front wheel of the car, Sandy vented his rage with a succession of kicks, each harder than the one before, until the last one hit home and he swore violently. Limping around in a circle, now just as angry with himself as he was with his situation and that of his family. "Stupid piece of crap. Christ, that hurts."

Shaking it off, he sighed and looked sheepishly at Kirsten. She slid off the front of the Land Rover, more brightened than concerned by his outburst. She knew her husband. "Better?"

"Yeah." Sandy smiled slightly back at her as he continued to shake off the sting in his foot. "Ryan." he asked finally. "Can I fix it for him?"

"I think so. Yes."

"Okay. Okay." Sandy thought out loud as he pushed the anger away and focused on the situation at hand. First thing was to get out of his surf gear; nothing screamed pushover like a limping beach bum.

"I brought your gray suit and the shoes." Kirsten said, deciphering his expression. "Change, and we'll go straight down there."

"You're the best wife ever, you know that?"

"I know."

He started towards Kirsten's car, grimacing amusedly as his foot protested. "You're also driving."

"Know that too."

Sandy smiled gratefully at Kirsten, even as the worry crept back unbidden across their expressions. "We will. We'll fix it."

The air was stale, cold and dry as Seth watched the last of his summer slip away beneath the thickening cloud. He was hungry, but looking at, or more precisely, smelling, the regimented trays of homogenized, pasteurized, packaged and processed food around him, Seth knew he could no more eat what the airline had to offer than he could clear the clouds beneath him for one last view of Mexico.

Selling his bike or "The Mighty One", as he'd somewhat privately and pretentiously referred to her, had been like all stages of his journey, ridiculously easy.

The Summer Breeze had hitched a one-way trip to Tahiti on boat God-knows-how-many times her size, with his own, return, passage paid for with sweat as a deckhand. Ten days on the island paid for by washing down yachts the like of which would have put Newport's finest to shame and back in Acapulco, the Breeze now further away than home, he'd found Tim, a traveler like himself, and The Mighty One.

After the welcome solitude and peace of the road, Seth had briefly flirted with the idea of riding The Mighty One all the way home, but the distance, the legalities and the constant embarrassment at his piss-poor Spanish had put paid to that idea almost as quickly as it had formed. Seth also found the idea of ever being allowed out of the house ever again quite attractive and so had found another traveler in Guadalajara with motorcycle-shaped dreams of their own to fulfill and had sold her too. Now all that remained was a thousand miles, a border and a thousand apologies and he'd be home.

It seemed so strange.

Stranger still, now that he was going back, was that he was calm. Ridiculously calm. There was no doubt, no doubt whatsoever, that he was returning home to the most gut wrenching conversation he and his parents had ever shared. Everyone in his life that he cared about, he had hurt. Selfishly, callously and deliberately, without question. But unnecessarily? Not even Seth knew for sure the answer to that one. What he did know, finally, was that he didn't doubt himself anymore. That he didn't regret at least one thing he did, one thing he said every single day anymore. That he didn't hate himself anymore. Before Tahiti, before Mexico, he couldn't remember the last time he felt like that.

Whatever else happened, between home and high waters, that was one place to which Seth knew he would never go back.

Leaning again against the small window, Seth watched the mountains far below, saw how they were beginning to diminish with every mile he traveled closer to home, and smiled.

"There's no place like home," he murmured softly to himself, without irony, sarcasm, self-indulgence or bitterness. For the first time in the years, he truly believed it. He could fix this.

Against all probability, Ryan slept. Back in the interview room, the weariness of the last twenty-four hours had finally caught up with him and pulled him down wholeheartedly into sleep and neither the drunken ramblings of his unsavory neighbors nor the unsuitability of the room's metal furniture as his bed was going to make a difference. Without stirring Ryan from his respite, the interview room door opened and the protestations of his fellow outlaws grew momentarily louder. Closing it gently to behind him, Sandy took one look at Ryan slouched forward, his head resting in the crook of one arm, his body still and calm in sleep and smiled. He hadn't seen him look this relaxed in months.

Quietly, so as not wake him harshly, Sandy pulled the chair across from Ryan out from under the metal bench and sat down. Lightly, he reached across the table and laid his hand on Ryan's shoulder, squeezing it to rouse him.

"Ryan? Ryan? Are you with me?"

At Sandy's touch, Ryan jolted and stirred sluggishly. He frowned as lifted his head and wiped at the imagined drool gathered at the corners of his mouth, as if he was trying to work out if Sandy was real or a mirage, left over from a fading dream.

The mirage reached for Ryan's cuffed hand, took it in his own and sighed. "You know, when I said we had to stop meeting like this, I wasn't just being cute."

"You're here?"

"I am. And so are you. Which I am less than thrilled about and believe me when we when I say we will be discussing this later, but it's not for much longer."

"I really screwed it up this time," Ryan grunted viciously to himself, pulling his chained away from Sandy with a jerk, rubbing his forehead deliberately with the heel of his free hand. "It's all such a mess, you shouldn't have to-"

"- Hey." Sandy interrupted firmly. "Hey. No. Stop. This is what I do. This is what lawyers do. This is what dads do."

Ryan looked up at him, not knowing if was hearing correctly, or if he even wanted to. Sensing and sharing Ryan's uncertainty, Sandy half-smiled at him with a shrug of his shoulders.

"They do. Whether they're related to their kids or not."

Grateful for Sandy's words but still unsure of how to respond to them, Ryan returned Sandy's half-smile and rested his head back on his hand, looking down at the table.

Subconsciously echoing his posture, Sandy sighed again. "We've been so worried about you, you know."

"I know," Ryan replied on impulse.

"I'm not just talking about the baby and Theresa and all of that, although obviously that's been a huge part of it, you're much too young to be taking on even half of what you've been taking on, but -" Determined to get this right first time round, Sandy stopped and started again. "When you left last night, I know it wasn't just about last night, or us, Theresa, there's something else. It's been eating at you for months, before any of this." Sandy faltered, suddenly afraid he was jumping to conclusion that wasn't his to draw. "Am I right?"

For the longest time, Ryan said nothing. Feeling like he'd swallowed a box of jumping beans, Sandy felt his good foot twitching up and down as he waited for the boy opposite him to find the words he was so obviously looking for.

"We got some new books in at work the other day," Ryan said finally, without looking up, his stillness a direct and eerie contrast to the older man studying him. Finding his voice, he continued, "I picked up this play, I was just killing time, but I ended up reading the whole thing, just standing there in the middle of the library like an idiot."

"What was it?"

"The Pillowman?" said Ryan hesitantly, looking atSandy momentarily, as if to check he wasn't been laughed at.

His guardian's face was the definition of sincerity. "Strange title."

Ryan frowned in agreement. "I know. It's a strange play. It's about a man, a storyteller who lives in this 1984 type world and he tells his brother all these tales and they're mostly twisted, but the brother loves them. One of the stories is about this fairytale creature, made completely out of pillows, who looks after children who are going to grow up to lead horrible lives. And he comes to them and he tells them about all the things that are going to happen to them, and then he offers them a choice; they can grow up and live their lives knowing what's going to happen, or go with him, find pills, or play in the river. Make it stop before it happens. And the children don't grow up."

He stopped, staring down at the table, feeling cold inside with confusion and loneliness. "It was so stupid, I ended up just standing there in the middle of the library, really, like an idiot, with all these books around me, and my shift has finished ten minutes ago and all I can think about it, is I wish that he'd come for me. I would have gone with him."

Ryan looked up at Sandy, saw the compassion and shared sadness in his face and was immediately embarrassed by it. "It's stupid."

"No, it's not," Sandy said without hesitation. "It's not stupid. It's sad. And-"

"- Strange?"

"Definitely strange. And a million other things this logical lawyer is terrible at finding the right words for."

"I'm still on stupid," Ryan replied with a Seth-like grunt, more angry with himself than Sandy. His irritation growing, he began dragging his cuffed hand up and down the metal rail once more. "I just don't know how I got here."

"Do you know what?" said Sandy suddenly with authority, clamping his hand down on Ryan's abruptly halting the screech. "Nobody does."

Surprised and unsettled by Sandy's sudden shift in tone, Ryan gave him his full attention.

"Eighteen months ago I had one son I didn't understand and now I have two. If somebody had told me I was going to end up being the guardian of some kid I'd met in juvie, I would have told them they were confusing me with my mother and thank them kindly not to do it again. But somehow it all worked out. You worked out. Kirsten and I stopped worrying we were going to find another stash of pills in Seth's bedroom and if I stopped worrying that she'd decide she wanted to be a fully fledged Newpsie Wasp after all, which is ridiculous, because really she's just as baffled by her life as I am by mine."

Now bouncing at three hundred plus beats per minute, Sandy's foot came to an abrupt stop as its owner came to his point.

"What I'm trying to say, Ryan is this: Nobody is perfect. Everybody makes mistakes; Kicking the car this morning was a little one. Letting you go this summer? That was a colossal one. I'm not sure what it is that made me want to help you more than any other of the kids I've worked with, or what made you call me after you're mom kicked you out. But I am so glad, so that you did. You and me, we found each other Ryan, and we're family now. All of us. You have to trust in family, in whatever form it takes. So that if you make mistakes we can put them right together. And try not to make them again."

Sandy looked at Ryan, relief and confidence flooding through him as he saw he was taking it in. Maybe even agreeing. His foot started to bounce again.

"I'm going to sort this out. And you're going to come home with Kirsten and me, where you belong. And if that means bringing Theresa and her mother and an entire delegation of maiden aunts with you than so be it. It'll be a tight squeeze in the poolhouse, but we'll work it out, okay?"

Ryan nodded. And smiled. "Okay."

"Okay?"

He nodded again. "Okay."

"Okay."

Satisfied, Sandy's foot ground to a halt. "Good. That's settled then. Now I'm going to go talk to Theresa, see if I can't find a way through all of this."

Standing up, Sandy limped round the table and gave Ryan a whole hearted and lengthy hug, before breaking away and studying him at arms length, scowling with exaggerated sternness as he gently touched his thumb over Ryan's latest black eye.

"This is the last time I want to see this look on you too, you hear? The neighbors will think we raised a ruffian."

Ryan grinned back, "Yeah, 'cause that limp just screams dignity."

"Don't even," Sandy replied good-naturedly, "This is the result of manly frustration."

Ryan raised a finally honed skeptical eyebrow.

"I'm not kidding; I think I broke my toe." Sandy smiled and gently touched his hand to Ryan's forehead, before pulling him back into another hug.

"What are we going to do with you?" he asked almost rhetorically he said as he felt Ryan relax into his shoulder, surrendering at last, allowing Sandy to pull him close.

Saying nothing as they squeezed it each other tight, Ryan eventually looked up at Sandy, finally ready to take what had been first offered to him so many months ago. "Please?" he asked, his voice small with exhaustion, "Just take me home?"


I have no right to ask anybody to read and review, given how long I've been taking between chapters, but I would love it if anybody did. Thank you.