All right, here's the next chapter. I'm moving into school on Friday, but I'm going to try to get another chapter in before I leave. If not, you'll just have to hold your horses until I get settled at school. Of course, the more reviews I get, the more willing I'll be to write another chapter before Friday. Anyway, hope you enjoy! Review please!

Disclaimer: The characters are not mine. Not even close.

"So today, we have to go to Harbor, and get you enrolled," Kirsten said coming into the kitchen and grabbing the pot of coffee. Ryan looked up at her from where he was sitting eating cereal next to Seth. "You're only going to be a few weeks behind. School only started less than a month ago. And then we have to go and get you a suit for the party on Saturday. Because I don't think either Sandy or Seth's suits will fit you."

"You don't have to do that," Ryan said shaking his head. He was still reeling from their decision last night that he would stay with the Cohens. It all felt so surreal. He made a mental note to call Teresa later and tell her what had happened. She was really the only person in Chino that might wonder where he had gone. His brother and father were in jail, and his mother was God knows where, and here he was, sitting in the kitchen of a million dollar house talking about going shopping and school. Such mundane things, but they were all new to Ryan. And he couldn't believe this was where he was. The last few days were a blur to him, and he was having a hard time wrapping his mind around the fact for at least the foreseeable future, this was where he was going to stay.

"What party?" Seth whined.

"Vegas Night," Kirsten answered. "And before you ask, yes, you are going. Don't try to weasel your way out of it." Seth grumbled as he got up to place his bowl in the sink. "And yes Ryan, you have to have a suit, and you'll need other things too. Shirts, and pants, and underpants."

"Mom, don't say underpants," Seth complained.

"And the pool house is so impersonal, are you sure you don't want a room in the house?" They had asked Ryan the night before if he wanted to move into the main house, but he had politely declined. Living in their pool house was one thing, but living in the house with the family was another thing. At least with the pool house he maintained some sort of independence.

"I'm sure," Ryan answered. Kirsten sighed, not bothering to hide the fact that she didn't agree with his decision.

"Well, then we'll have to get you some new bedding, and a desk because you'll have homework. And maybe some posters? How's the bed? Is it comfortable?"

"It's fine," Ryan answered automatically. Kirsten nodded. Sandy came into the kitchen and gave Kirsten a kiss on the cheek.

"Hello all," he said cheerfully as he too reached for the pot of coffee.

"Hi sweetie," Kirsten said. "Are you in court today?"

"No, not today," Sandy said. The fact that Seth was sitting at the table, still in the room despite his parents entering it, had not slipped past his attention. Seth made it a point to avoid any and all contact with his parents. He couldn't help the grin that plastered itself on his face. "I have to go down to Social Services today." That caught both Seth and Ryan's attentions and both the boys' heads jerked up. Ryan wondered if they had changed their minds. Or at least, if Sandy had changed his mind. Bringing him home, it seemed like that had been mostly Kirsten's doing, and he wondered if Sandy didn't really agree with his wife. He told himself that he was being ridiculous. Kirsten was just talking about bedding and enrolling him in Seth's school. They wanted him to stay. Both of them.

"What for?" Seth asked.

"Because Ryan is still a minor, and we have to discuss what needs to be done for him to stay with us," Sandy explained. Ryan sagged with relief.

"If it's too much trouble…" Ryan began.

"No," Sandy said immediately, gently but firmly. "It's not too much trouble. Don't worry about it kid." Kid, Ryan thought. It had been a long time since anyone, including himself, considered him a kid. But Ryan nodded and smiled slightly. Kid, he liked it. He could get used to it. "Well, I should go. You're going to take them to school?" Kirsten nodded, taking the last sip of her coffee.

"Yes, Seth, are you almost ready?" Seth nodded and ran off to get his book bag.

"Have a good day sweetie," Sandy said giving Kirsten a kiss goodbye. "And good luck Ryan." Ryan looked up at Kirsten panicked.

"Good luck? Why would I need luck?"

"You're going to have to take the entrance exams," Kirsten said. She gave him a gentle smile. "I'm sure you'll pass with flying colors. Everyone has to take them. It's a fairly prestigious school. If you graduate from Harbor, you can go to any school in the UC system. Maybe even an Ivy league."

"I don't think I'm Ivy League material," Ryan said with a wry smile.

"After a few years at Harbor you could be," Kirsten said. "But anyway, don't worry about it. You'll be fine." She left the kitchen to get her briefcase and jacket and Ryan finished his cereal and sighed. It was certainly different from his last school. At Chino Hills, all he had to do was show up. Seth came back in the kitchen and grinned at Ryan.

"I really hope you get in," he said. "I'm sure you will. It'll be awesome having you at school with me." Seth seemed so excited about it, that Ryan could do nothing but give him a small smile and nod.

"I hope I get in too," he said. Ryan couldn't actually see what the big deal with Harbor was. To him, school was school. Where he was from, it wasn't important where you went to school. It didn't even matter if you went at all. This whole private, elitist high school thing was a foreign concept. One of many things in the Cohen home that he couldn't quite wrap his head around.

"Are you guys ready? Let's go," Kirsten said appearing with her purse and keys. The ride to the school was short, and all three got out of the car and headed towards the school.

"This is your school?" Ryan asked incredulously looking around at the lush courtyard.

"Hopefully our school dude, and yes, this is Harbor," Seth said with disdain.

"We have to go this way Ryan," Kirsten said pointing.

"I'll see you later," Seth said waving as he headed in the other direction. Kirsten led Ryan past students to the administrator's offices and they waited outside for the headmaster. The door finally opened and Dr. Kim, Ryan presumed, appeared.

"Kirsten, lovely to see you as always," she said stretching out her hand for Kirsten to shake. "You must be Ryan. Come on in." Kirsten gave Ryan a reassuring smile, and squeezed his arm before following Dr. Kim into the lavish offices. It was different from Chino Hills, that was for sure.

"Your grades are borderline, but acceptable," Dr. Kim said looking over the folder that Chino Hills had sent over on Ryan. "It worries me that you didn't enroll in school for this year at your old high school. I wonder about your commitment to your studies."

"Ryan's in a completely different situation than he was before," Kirsten spoke up. "And Sandy and I will make sure that he is committed to his studies." Dr. Kim nodded and then looked at Ryan again.

"I'll work as hard as I can," he promised softly.

"Your test scores do show promise," Dr. Kim said. "We'll schedule the placement test for tomorrow morning. If you are offered admission, I would like to get you enrolled as soon as possible so that you aren't too behind." He only listened vaguely when Dr. Kim explained what the test would be like. He was sure that Kirsten would remember what time he was supposed to be there tomorrow, and then they said goodbye and headed out of the office. Kirsten lagged slightly to say hello the receptionist and as Ryan headed out of the office, he ran right into something. Actually, he had run right into someone.

"Sorry," he said looking up to see who it was that he had run into. It was a girl. A very pretty girl. She smiled at him.

"No problem, I wasn't looking where I was going either," she said shrugging. "Do I know you?"

"Oh Marissa!" Kirsten said coming up to the two teenagers. "This is Ryan, he's going to be staying with us from now on. Ryan, this is Marissa Cooper, she lives next door." Staying with us from now on, Ryan repeated in his head. How very vague. Maybe he could pretend to be the cousin from Portland. Or the nephew from Boston. Pretend that he belonged.

"Nice to meet you," Ryan said.

"You too. Are you going to go here?"

"Hopefully," Kirsten replied for him. "He's supposed to take the placement test tomorrow."

"It's not bad," Marissa assured him. "I'm sure you'll do fine. I'd better go. Bye Kirsten."

"Bye Marissa." Marissa smiled at Kirsten, and then turned her attention to Ryan.

"See you around." With that, she disappeared further into the offices and Kirsten placed a hand on Ryan's back and led him out of the offices and to the car.

"Marissa's a nice girl," Kirsten said as they pulled out of the parking lot. "But she's had a lot of things go wrong lately in her life. So I would just…be careful with her…of her."

"What happened?" Ryan asked curiously. He had recognized the sadness in Marissa's eyes. He had noticed that her smile didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Her dad got into some financial trouble, legal trouble actually, and everyone found out at cotillion. If that isn't bad enough, her mother is in the process of leaving her dad, and she…" Kirsten bit her lip, wondering how much she should tell Ryan. She looked over at him, only to find him watching her expectantly. "Well, before school started this year, she and some friends went down to Tijuana, and I'm not sure what happened, but she palmed some pain killers and washed them down with vodka."

"Did she mean to kill herself?" Ryan asked. Kirsten looked over at him surprised.

"Well, I suppose so," Kirsten said. "I mean, she didn't accidentally do it. She knew what she was doing." Ryan shrugged.

"That still doesn't mean she actually wanted to kill herself," he said.

"No," Kirsten said slowly. "I guess it doesn't. But either way, her parents are getting her some help." Ryan nodded and Kirsten smiled at him, eager to change the subject from the chaos that was currently the Cooper family. "So where to first?" Ryan shrugged again.

"You tell me," he said smiling back at her. But he couldn't stop thinking about Marissa Cooper. He was always a sucker for the damsel in distress. He was always attracted to girls who were in the process of falling apart. He liked to pretend that he could help piece them back together. He had tried it with his family too, tried to be the only stable one, tried to put his mother back together after a rough night of drinking. Tried to stop his brother from doing the stupid things that eventually landed Trey in jail. Tried desperately to pretend that he could hold all the dysfunctional Atwoods together, only to learn, suddenly and heartbreakingly, that he couldn't. No one could. Ryan only too aware of the fact that he had a hero complex, and he could just tell that Marissa Cooper was going to be trouble.

They came home hours later, Kirsten's car loaded with bags. As she pulled into the driveway, Ryan spotted Sandy's car parked.

"Oh, Sandy's home," Kirsten said. "I wonder why."

"When does he normally come home?" Ryan asked. He had had a nice time with Kirsten, to his surprise. They had talked about her job, and he admitted to an interest in architecture. She had offered to take him on an architectural tour of Newport, and they had even stopped by a model home that her company was in the middle of building.

"It should be finished soon," Kirsten said sighing. "If I can find new contractors."

"It'll be beautiful," Ryan said looking up at the high ceilings and imagining what it would be like when it was completely done. Kirsten had beamed at him.

"Thanks," she said. "I think so too."

"Um, dinnertime, sometimes later depending on what he's working on," Kirsten said now as she parked next to Sandy's car. Ryan was still slightly uncomfortable with Sandy's presence. His history with men did not lead him trust easily, and though from what he saw Sandy was a good guy, who loved his wife and provided for his family, Ryan was unconsciously waiting for him to turn into what every other man in his life had been. He just wasn't quite as comfortable around Sandy as he was Kirsten. He wondered if it was because of his wariness of men, or just because it seemed that he and Kirsten were a lot more alike than he and Sandy were.

The front door opened as Kirsten and Ryan unloaded all his bags, and Sandy came out and gave Kirsten a kiss on the cheek and took the heavy bags from her.

"Did you leave anything in the store?" He asked groaning as they made their way through the house and to the pool house.

"Yes," Kirsten replied. "I left the empty hangers. Oh those bags are mine." She pointed to a few, and Sandy's eyes widened at the sight of a familiar striped pink bag. Ryan's eyes widened too, and he wondered when she had slipped to Victoria's Secret.

"Well, why don't you guys come in, I have to talk to both of you," Sandy said. He picked up the pink bag, and peeked inside and his smile grew wider. Kirsten grabbed the rest of her bags and they headed into the kitchen.

"How did your trip to social services go?" Kirsten asked as she opened the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of water, offering one to Ryan, which he accepted, and immediately began to nervously pick at the label.

"It went well," Sandy said nodding. "That's what I need to talk to you about though. See, Ryan, in order for you to live with us, we need to become your legal guardians."

"I can't ask you to do that," Ryan said shaking his head. This was getting more and more complicated. It was one thing to live with them and go to school, but now they were taking legal responsibility for him, and paying for a lavish private school education. There was no way that he would ever be able to pay them back for al that they were doing.

"You're not asking, we're offering," Sandy said. "I'm asking you if that would be okay." Ryan looked from Kirsten to Sandy and then slowly nodded.

"If you're sure that it's not…"

"It's not," Kirsten interrupted. She smiled at him and then gave him a hug. "We're happy to do this."

"We have to go down tomorrow and sign the papers," Sandy said to Kirsten. "Get everything in order." Kirsten nodded and Sandy shook Ryan's hand.

"Welcome to the family kid," he said smiling. "Now tell me all about how your meeting with Dr. Kim went."

The next day Sandy drove Ryan to the school for his placement test. Seth was turned in his seat the entire way to Harbor offering Ryan advice and words of encouragement.

"It'll be fine," Seth said. "If people like Luke Ward can pass, than you certainly can. Cause that kid shaves his chest."

"What does that have to do with being able to take a test?" Sandy asked laughing a little. Seth shrugged.

"It denotes a lack of brain cells Dad," Seth explained. "It also shows that he's a tool."

"Well, I don't know about that, but I know that you'll pass," Sandy said. "You've been living in the Cohen house now for almost a week. Some of our inherent wisdom and genius is bound to have started to sink in."

"True," Seth said nodding. "We Cohens are nothing if not wise." Ryan snorted in the back, enjoying the banter.

Almost a week. He had been there since that fateful night that he called Kirsten to ask her if he could stay the night. Five days ago. Five days with this crazy, but endearing family. With this family that was willing to take him in. It amazed him. His own family didn't want anything to do with him, but this family was going out of their way to make him a part of theirs.

"All right kid, here we are," Sandy said parking the car and leading the way. "You ready?"

"I'm as ready as I'll ever be," Ryan said shrugging. "Let's go get this over with."

"You'll text message me the result as soon as you know, right?" Seth requested.

"Yeah," Ryan promised. "Sure."

"Great," Seth grinned as he went off to class. Ryan sighed, resigned himself to his fate, and followed Sandy.

A little over an hour later, as Sandy sat outside, reading over documents that he had brought with him, and nervously checking the time every few minutes, the door opened and Ryan came out.

"So? Are you a Harbor Pirate?" Sandy asked.

"They named themselves the Pirates?" Ryan asked incredulously.

"Come on kid, don't leave me hanging here," Sandy said smiling at him.

"I'm in," Ryan said, and he couldn't help the grin that crossed his face. Sandy surprised him by throwing his arms around Ryan and patting him on the back.

"Way to go," he said. "Now you better text message Seth, or else we'll never hear the end of it. And then I'll call Kirsten, and maybe we can meet her for lunch to celebrate. And then Kirsten and I can head down to Social Services and sign the necessary papers for you to be able to stay." Ryan sent the message to Seth, and then handed the phone back to Sandy. Sandy dialed his wife's number, and she picked up on the first ring and asked immediately,

"Did he get in?"

"He got in," Sandy confirmed, grinning at Ryan. Ryan, who wasn't used to the attention, turned bright red and looked out the window and away from Sandy's gaze. "What are you doing for lunch? We'll come pick you up? Celebratory meal?" Ryan could only hear Sandy's side of the conversation, but from what he heard, Kirsten had agreed, and they were on their way to the Newport Group's offices to pick her up.

Sandy called when they pulled up and she said that she was just finishing up something and she would be down in a second.

"So this is where Kirsten works, huh?" Ryan said gazing up at the lavish building.

"Yes, consider this her castle, or well her father's castle, and all of Orange County as their empire," Sandy said. "This is where the magic happens." His grin suddenly faltered and Ryan followed Sandy's stare to where an older man was crossing over to the car. "Oh here comes my favorite person in the world." Ryan looked confused, as Sandy tried to duck down in his seat.

"Sanford, I can see you in the car," the man's booming voice called out. Kirsten appeared in the doorway to the Newport Group and realization dawned on her face as she saw her father standing by the car. "I see you trying to hide." Kirsten hurried over.

"Dad! What are you doing here?"

"I told you, I want to take a more active part in the Newport Group again," Caleb said. "Where are going?"

"To lunch," Sandy said rolling down his window. It was then that Caleb looked past Sandy and saw Ryan for the first time.

"Who are you?" Caleb barked.

"Well, Dad," Kirsten said smiling nervously at her father. "This is Ryan. I told you about Ryan. He worked at the construction site? He was there the night I was attacked?"

"Oh yes," Caleb said. "I understand all of that, but why is he sitting in your car?" Kirsten gave Ryan an apologetic smile, before turning back to her father. He would not take the news of Ryan staying with them very well. In fact, she could foresee yelling, and she knew, unfortunately, that Ryan would take the brunt of her father's disapproval. So she took a deep breath, and tried to brace herself for his reaction, wishing that she had some way to warn Ryan about what was going to come next. But short of telecommunication, she had nothing.

"Ryan's going to be staying with us from now on."