Title: Apples and Trees

Description: Ryan is in danger of following in his brother's footsteps.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to The O.C.. Not for profit.

Author's Notes: This story was inspired by the previews for upcoming episodes that aired after 3.4 The Last Waltz. Note that the events in this story don't match exactly the previews. Plus, I avoid spoilers at all costs, so no spoilers were used as a basis for this story. Any resemblance to any storyline in the actual upcoming episodes is unlikely and purely coincidental.

Chapter 1

Ryan sat at the foot of the bed in the Cohens' pool house, slouched over, staring at the classified ads, hoping against hope. He'd been through all the help-wanted ads once already, and he was now sifting through them again, just in the off chance that he missed something the first time through.

He just had to find a job. If he wasn't going to go to school any more, he had to work. He had to.

Ryan looked up and took a deep breath, rolling his shoulders and turning his head back and forth, trying to work out the kink in his neck. He glanced back down at the newspaper and smiled a bit to himself. He remembered going over the classifieds with Trey last spring, just like this. It was funny how alike they were in some ways, he and Trey. Apples and trees. He was his brother's Little Brother.

Ryan sighed, lowered the newspaper, and looked out over the ocean. Just as he had predicted to Marissa that sad evening months ago after he had watched Trey's bus disappear into the darkness, here he was, alone again, wondering where Trey went, if he was okay, if he'd gotten caught yet.

Ryan's breath caught is his throat as he tried not to think about all the things that could happen to Trey out on the road, on the run like he was. Ryan hoped that since they hadn't heard anything, that meant he hadn't been picked up, or hurt, or killed. He hoped that if anything happened to him, the authorities would notify him, or at least notify Sandy. Ryan closed his eyes for a moment. Trey and his mom, out there somewhere, god-knew-where. All he could do was hope they were okay. It was the not-knowing that was killing him.

After a while, Ryan made the effort to pull himself away from dwelling on the state of his family. He needed to move on to more pressing concerns. As he shifted his eyes away from the ocean, the desk in the corner of the pool house caught his eye. He stopped to take a long look at the school books and other school supplies scattered around it – the debris of Sandy's doomed 'home schooling' experiment.

The first private tutor, a middle-aged woman who never married and never had kids – the one who tutored Stallone's kids ten or fifteen years back -- was all right, Ryan supposed. It really wasn't her fault that he hated home study: being stuck in the pool house all day, first alone with the tutor, then really alone working on his "homework".

School at home – it just felt so... wrong. School was supposed to be going to a large building with a bunch of other kids, sitting in classrooms, going from one teacher to the next, a different teacher for each subject. And there was supposed to be lunch in a cafeteria, and school sports and dances... This, this was not school. And Ryan wanted no part of it.

Still, he kind of felt guilty about the hard time he gave the first tutor, to the point where she finally got fed up and stormed into Sandy's office and quit. Ryan was relieved to get rid of her, until Sandy insisted on finding another one. The second one was worse, an arrogant thirty-something prick. He didn't even last half as long as the first. At least the first one had tried.

Ryan took a deep breath and looked back down at the newspaper's help wanted section and started doodling on it with his red pen. Right now, Sandy was in his office looking for yet another tutor for him. Ryan had been trying to get up the nerve to tell him that he didn't want to try again. It wasn't the tutors, it was him. He just wasn't cut out for this home schooling thing.

And to top it off, Ryan supposed it was probably too late in the school year now to start up at Newport Union or some other school and actually be able to finish the work and graduate on time. If only Sandy had listened to him when he asked to enroll at Newport Union at the beginning of the year... But there was no point in going there now. There was nothing to be done about it. This school year was lost.

Hence the job search. Ryan didn't know what else to do.

After a few more minutes of fruitlessly studying the classifieds, Ryan threw the newspaper down on the bed and stood up. He was bored. He felt confined by the walls of the pool house, even if three of them were made of windows. He needed to get out. He grabbed his leather jacket and headed for his bike. Now that Kirsten was home, he didn't have unfettered access to the Range Rover any more, and even though Sandy was home and so was his Lexus, Ryan didn't feel comfortable asking to borrow Sandy's shiny new car. So it was back to the bike.

After making a quick stop in Sandy's office to let him know that he was going out, Ryan got on his bike and headed for the pier. Maybe he could find a Help Wanted sign at the Crab Shack or the Bait Shop or the diner or some such place. Or even if not, it would feel good to work off some of his pent-up energy with a fast bike ride and maybe a run on the beach. Ryan sped off down the driveway and out of the Cohens' housing development, deep in thought.

To be continued.