Thanks to melanie39 for beta-ing.

Disclaimer- I own nothing!

The Accidental Hero

Chapter 15

Ryan woke with a start. The bright California sun poured in through the blinds signalling that the sun was high in the sky and the hour late. He rubbed his hand over his face as the dream that had awoken him receded back into the recesses of his mind. He grabbed his watch from the nightstand and checked the time…two-thirty.

He slumped back into the warm mattress and waited for the fog of too much sleep to lift. The thought of spending all day in bed was tempting but he could already picture the scene inside the house. Seth probably had to be physically retrained by the elder Cohens from coming in here all morning and Sandy and Kirsten were probably already starting on operation 'get Ryan to open up' after last night's episode.

Sandy and he had arrived home to a quiet house and for that Ryan was thankful. He had dreaded the thought of having to face 'people'. He'd been hugged by Kirsten until he couldn't breathe and she'd made his shirt wet on the shoulder. Seth had stood shuffling his feet as if he was unsure of what to do, so Ryan had held his knuckles out for the teenage male equivalent of a hug.

After the bonding session Ryan was aware that everyone was walking on eggshells around him, not knowing quite what to say. Instead they babbled about what they were going to order from the Thai menu. He hadn't missed the relief on their faces when he had piped up that this evening called for huge greasy pizzas and some double chocolate ice-cream. He wasn't hungry but he wanted more than anything to break the strange atmosphere that had settled in the kitchen. And if they noticed that his voice was a little too loud and a little too forced they didn't say anything.

They had all sat in the Den eating and drinking soda while Seth regaled him with tales of what had gone on at school and Casa Cohen in the past few days. Ryan had forced himself to smile and not think of what had happened less than twenty-four hours ago. He laughed with the others when Sandy came round the back of the sofa without him noticing and had boisterously patted him on the shoulder causing him to knock his drink flying. He acted as if it was just his natural clumsiness at play whilst his heart had thumped and his palms sweated. He'd eaten two large slices of pizza even though just the look of the oozing cheese had made his stomach rebel. He had taken a call from Marissa and listened for any slight change in her tone as she spoke. She seemed to be acting the same towards him but he couldn't be sure. One thing he did know was that he had managed to go even further down in Julie's estimations. He was now just a few notches above Satan himself and she'd been spreading poison all around town about him. That was until Kirsten had stormed over to her house and put her foot down. Sandy had said that he didn't know what his wife had said to Julie but shortly afterwards the woman had suddenly stopped bad mouthing Ryan at every opportunity.

When Marissa had asked to come over he'd cited the fact that the Cohens just wanted a quiet night in as an avoidance tactic to stop her. He couldn't face any more tears and he knew that Marissa would have plenty.

They had all moved into the kitchen for coffee and ice-cream and talk of Summer's latest fad, kickboxing. Ryan had silently gathered the empty pizza boxes and taken them out to the trash.

He'd opened the lid of the trash can and just as he was going to throw them in he caught sight of the contents. He pulled out the large crumpled 'welcome home' banner, the sad burst balloons, and bunting. Evidence of just one more thing he'd screwed up for the Cohens. The pizza and ice cream churned in his stomach and he threw the boxes on top of the party decorations. He ran full pelt to the pool house, knelt in front of the toilet and retched. He stayed there until he was sure his gut had finally purged all its contents, then crawled into bed. The lack of sleep over the past week had eventually caught up with him and culminated in bone achingly tiredness that he couldn't fight anymore.

If any of the Cohens had come in to check on him he couldn't remember, but now he was awake he was sure that something would be said about his sudden and abrupt disappearance last night. With a sigh he walked over and got some clean clothes then stepped into the bathroom. The confrontation that he knew would happen would have to wait a while longer. He turned the shower on full and stepped in.

He let the water iron out the creases in his aching muscles and when he dried off, he got a large stretchy bandage out of the medicine cabinet and wrapped it around his ribs, securing the end firmly with the Velcro strip. The last time he'd used the bandage was after the incident with Trey. He wasn't sure why he'd kept the fact that he'd met his brother inside from Sandy. He wasn't sure of so many things at the moment. He got dressed and sat down on the end of his bed… just a while longer then he'd go in.

Seth held onto Captain Oats. He'd tried to ask for some advice from his plastic equine friend but Oats was strangely silent on the subject of how to act around a recently incarcerated friend.

His dad had said that they needed to give Ryan a bit of time and space but Seth knew that would only lead to hereto-unprecedented levels of brooding and self-doubt. Seth could see last night that Ryan was acting. The smiles were false and the breezy attitude was hiding the fact that he wanted to be a million miles away from them at the moment.

Well for once he knew better than his father. In his book the last thing Ryan needed was more space to grow further apart from them. People thought he was just stupid and insensitive to Ryan's feelings but he knew how to play the game around him, he was the master.

If you acted like things were normal around Ryan, be it just after his mom had left or when Theresa had lost the baby, then you pulled Ryan back in close. If you let him dwell too much on his problems then, and Seth had seen it time and time again, Ryan drifted far away into the distance like a helium balloon that you'd carelessly let go. He'd float further and further away until you had to stretch to catch the string and it always scared the shit out of Seth that one day they wouldn't be able to jump high enough. What would happen when they couldn't reach that string anymore?

Julie had always hated the boy, he reminded her of where she had come from. He also reminded her that to get ahead in life you didn't have to take the selfish self-serving path to get there. Julie also didn't want to acknowledge that the generally good people that she secretly admired all saw Ryan for who he was, they all liked him and admired his spirit. It was only the most spiteful embittered people like herself, Caleb and the shallowest of Newport's finest that still thought of him as a street thug.

She hated the fact that he could reach her daughter in a way that she had never been able to do. Even Luke had become his friend. Luke, who had wanted nothing more than to pound him into the ground, had been able to see Ryan for what he was.

Julie had steadfastly refused to jump on the Ryan love bandwagon. She couldn't let him in and she knew why. He could read her like a book and that scared her. He looked at her as though he knew that she was a fraud. He had always failed to be intimidated by her and had stood up to her on too many occasions for her liking. It was like he knew that her brittle exterior was just a façade to hide a million insecurities.

She enjoyed playing the victim over the burglary at her house; she had enjoyed even more demonising Ryan at every opportunity. That was until Kirsten had turned up one day and shouted at her. Kirsten Cohen had shown her claws like a lioness protecting her cub. She could have handled that. What she couldn't handle was Kirsten breaking down in front of her and telling her the real details of the night the Cohen residence had been targeted, the raw pain as she had described the near rape…and how at that moment she had selfishly wanted to die. That there was no way that she would be able to cope with that happening to her.

Then Ryan had shown up and given her life back, and in the process the kid had risked his own skin to make sure she was safe. Kirsten had told her that she had run that night and left Ryan to face God knows what and because of that Ryan was being punished now. Kirsten told her of the leverage that they had used on him to get him to comply, that only the ongoing threat to her and her family had made Ryan do the things he had.

Julie had been shocked. She had not bothered to think about the cause behind Ryan's sudden shift back into petty crime. Having Kirsten spell it out to her in all its grim glory made her ashamed for the way she'd lambasted Ryan to everyone.

But the thing that made her stop the call for Ryan's lynching was the stone cold realization that if the tables had been shifted that night and it had been the Cooper Nichol's house that had been targeted, then Ryan, if he had been around, would have protected her and Marissa in the same manner. She was sure of that. No matter how much of a bitch she was to him. That put things into perspective, it also made her feel guilty and Julie Cooper-Nichol did not feel guilt.

Sandy and Kirsten sat in the kitchen and waited for any sign of movement from the pool house. The bacon that Sandy had cooked hours ago for breakfast lay uneaten and congealing on the counter top. Worry was etched on both their faces. This had been the longest morning. Waiting for Ryan to emerge was pure torture. They agreed that they would give him some time but neither of them had realized how difficult it would be. One thing they knew with Ryan was not to ambush him. If you did that then he would retreat, but if you gave him too much space would you miss it if the kid were reaching out? Would he see their space giving as just lack of interest on their part? Ryan was so complex he really should have come with his own manual, 'Ryan for Dummies' because sometimes they were at a loss as to how to tread around him when things happened to him that they had no real comprehension of.

Sandy got up abruptly.

"I've had enough of this, I'm going to check on him."

He uttered this just as Seth barrelled into the room and said almost the exact same words.

It would have been funny in a different situation. Kirsten was just about to open her mouth to say that if both of them went then it would seem like an ambush when the door opened and Ryan strode in.

"Morning…or should I say afternoon? Sorry I crashed on you last night. I made the mistake of going into my room to change and the next thing I know it's eighteen hours later! I can't believe I slept so long, I guess I missed my bed. So what's for breakfast, I'm starving?"

Ryan grinned and snatched up a piece of bacon and chewed.

"I've got a craving for a large plate of eggs…. anyone else want some?"

Ryan set about getting the eggs out of the fridge. Normal, he just wanted things to get back to normal. He wanted them to stop looking at him like 'that'.

If he had looked behind him he'd have seen that they weren't fooled in the slightest and one person was definitely not buying the happy, carefree front he was displaying. That person frowned and swore that they would be there for him this time. They owed him and this time they would make sure that they would deliver.

TBC

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