Hi,

First of all I want to wish you all a 'Happy New Year'…

And just to start it worthy I decided to post a fanfic for the very first time ever; and it´s also the first story I ever really wrote ;-)…

It´s a general story, but with mostly SS context…and although the idea is pretty old, I got inspired by the last few episodes…and out came this….

The first few chapters are kinda slow and even a little bit mushy, but I can promise you the drama is on it´s way….

Hope you like it and please review, even if you don´t think it was good – I´m pretty sure I can take some critic as long as it´s objective. ;-)

And 'thanks' to my amazing Beta-readers: Steffi, Isa and Dani….Love you guys ;-))

Prologue: Merry Chrismukkah

The whole house smelled like cookies…chocolate and cinnamon, orange, citrus, pistachio and almond. The aroma was almost dizzying and if you didn´t know it better one could think it was a bakery…if there wouldn´t have been the huge white mansion, the Californian sun glistening in the oversized pool, Hilary Duff´s Christmas album playing on high volume and two 18 year old girls, standing in the kitchen covered and surrounded with flour and dough…laughing like they were innocent little girls again, throwing even more of the sticky sweat mixture at each other.

It was 10:00 AM on December 24th and Marissa and Summer had called the Roberts´ kitchen their own in attempt to bake at least a billion of Christmas cookies. Well, however…they had managed to make a whole bunch of chocolate and cinnamon ones before the fight had started and the rest of their ingredients were thrown into their hair, faces and onto their clothes.

Both had crossed the line of ridiculous a while ago and right now Summer had her fist full of dough, smiling threateningly at her best friend, while Marissa held up the half full box of flour, grinning just as evilly.

"Don´t dare to…", giggled Summer, holding her full fist just a little higher.

"Or what?", laughed Marissa before she threw the whole contents of the box right in Summer´s face and cracked up.

"Oh, come here you…", she yelled back laughing, flour falling down her nose as she smashed the cookie dough right on top of Marissa´s head.

"You girls have fun?", Neil Roberts asked smirking at the sight of the two girls, standing in the doorway, holding the phone in his hand.

Both girls looked at each other shocked, busted, before they fell back into hysterics.

"Sorry, Dad. We´ll clean that up, promise!", Summer said sheepishly, giving her dad her best puppy dog face and a full pout.

"Yeah, it´s okay, sweetie. Marissa, your mom´s on the phone."

Marissa rubbed her palms on her apron before she took the receiver from Mr. Roberts and left the kitchen.

Walking over to his daughter he rubbed some flour off of her tiny nose, smiling at her, before her reached out for one of the cookies.

"Dad!", she cried out, slapping his hand. "Don´t! We just have this few and they´re for tonight."

"Yeah, well...if you put the rest of the dough in your hair instead of the oven…", Neil replied, grinning widely at Summer, who just gave him a meaningful look.

"And about tonight…I kind of wanted to talk to you!"

"Sure!", Summer stated just as Marissa came back into the kitchen, frowning.

"My mom´s on her way to pick me up so we can get Caitlin.", she said, obviously not too exited about it.

"Well, that´s great. You haven´t seen her in sooo long and I know you miss her."

Caitlin hadn´t been home since last Christmas, since the last summer hadn´t been the best time to come back, and everyone knew that Marissa was pretty upset that she had lost the contact to her little sister.

"Yeah, it´s still weird, you know….I´m sorry to leave you with this mess, but if it´s okay, I´ll help you later."

"Na, it´s okay.", Summer answered, waving it off, just as the bell rang.

"Ok, thanks…Bye."

"So, you wanted to talk! I´m free now.", Summer said smiling to her dad as Marissa got out of sight, throwing a cloth at him.

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"Hey, mom.", Marissa greeted unenthusiastically as she got into her Mom´s BMW.

"Hey, sweetie. How are…", Julie stopped dead in tracks at the sight of her daughter´s hair, that was pulled into a messy ponytail, sticky and straggly.

"Me and Summer were baking cookies.", she deadpanned, ignoring the look on her mother´s face.

"Okay, I´m not going to ask for further explanation….I-There´s- I…I have something to tell you. Something important. I wanted to tell you before, but….but I got scared and I was ashamed, I still am, and now your sister is coming back home and…"

"Mom!"

Julie looked at Marissa completely out of breath and pulled to the side of the road, stopping the car. Closing her eyes she said: "We´re bankrupt and I´m living in a trailer."

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"Wow! Something´s smelling really awesome in here.", Sandy stated smiling as he stepped into the kitchen, where Kirsten was cooking.

"Ah, and it looks awesome, too…", he went on as he wrapped his arms around his wife´s slim waist from behind and looked over her shoulder at all the delicious looking things Kirsten prepared for tonight´s dinner.

"…Just like the cook herself."

He kissed her on the temple then on the neck before stepping to her side, leaning against the kitchen counter.

"So, you invited Julie and the kids?"

"Yeah, I couldn´t let her do this at her…home. And she´s telling Marissa today, so I thought they could need at least a great Christmas Eve.", Kirsten replied, looking sad for her friend.

"Wow, breaking the news to two kids on one day. That´s tough!...They´re really lucky to have you…", he said, sliding his arms around her waist again, facing her this time.

"…We all are.", he murmured against her lips, before they kissed.

"OMG,…I´m blind now!", Seth cried out at the sight of his parents kissing like love crazed teenagers.

"Come on, Seth…your mom´s a hottie and besides, it´s not like your mom and I never tripped over you and Summer making out!", Sandy said grinning, amused by the look of pure horror on his son´s face.

"Okay,…that is just…wrong!", he replied, shaking his head. "I´ve made the booties." He held up four Christmas boots of red felt for evidence.

"Oh, thanks, sweetie…that´s so sweet of you.", Kirsten said, pinching his cheek.

"Mom, please…Oh, and I didn´t know how they spell Caitlin, so I wrote 'little Cooper' on her one."

Kirsten´s smile fell and she looked at Seth unbelievingly, while Sandy just couldn´t suppress a laugh.

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Summer just looked at her dad, who refused to look her in the eyes.

"So, you and Carrie are getting divorced!" Her voice was blank and emotionless.

"I´m so sorry, sweetie. I just-…We tried to make this work for so long now, but it just doesn´t. I wasn´t happy, she wasn´t happy…and most importantly you weren´t happy."

Summer looked up and met her dad´s eyes as he continued.

"You know,…when your mom left you were so broken and hurt and I couldn´t help you. And even when I tried to, you wouldn´t let me….You made me responsible for her leaving and I was somehow. So then I met Carrie and I liked her and she liked you and I convinced myself that you would like her too…and I thought it would be great if you had a mother again. But now…now I think maybe I just made it worse with that decision, didn´t I?"

Neil Roberts looked at his daughter, lost, hurt and sorry, wanting to hear a lie although he already knew the truth.

Summer blinked as she tried to hold back the tears that threatened to slip.

"Dad…"

"Yeah…", he sighed. "Now I know that you didn´t need a new mom, You needed your real one and I chased her away…."

"Dad…", she choked out through the big lump in her throat at hot salty tears started to fall, streaming down her face rapidly. She had never seen her dad like this before and it scared her. Until that day, he had always been that strong, tough man for her, that she had admired and looked up to. And now, seeing the vulnerable and hurt side of him she knew that it wasn´t just her who needed him, but that he needed her just as much, maybe even more.

"Dad…I wanted mom back, but more importantly I needed you. You! Not mom coming back crying and being unhappy or another woman playing her part…I just needed you! I still do!"

And she said the truth. She had missed her mom so badly, she still did…yeah, there were even those nights when she would cry herself to sleep. And even to remember the pain back then made her whole body ache. She had just wanted her mommy back, but instead she had lost her daddy too, to a strange woman that she had never really liked and that had forced herself into her mom´s position, at least in the beginning.

Summer looked into her dad´s grey eyes as he pulled her into his arms, hugging and comforting her while she sobbed into his chest.

Now her and her dad had gotten hurt all over again and for the 10.000.000th time Summer wondered what her life had been like if Carolyn James-Roberts hadn´t left all these years ago.

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"I don´t believe this! What the hell happened to Caleb´s money!...The only reason you even married him was for his money…and now we have to live in here? The whole thing just has the size of my former bedroom…uh, and it´s so ugly! I don´t even want to know what I could catch in here!...Hellooo, I once heard something about hygiene, but that´s just…ugh, what was that? It´s got limbs! I can´t believe this!..."

Marissa and Julie just looked at each other, heads shaking. In the last two years Caitlin Cooper had changed from a spoiled but cute little girl into a monster-teenager. She hadn´t stopped complaining since the minute she had left the plane; and since she´d found out where her new home was, Marissa had started to reconsider the whole 'I´m glad to have my sister back'- thing and Julie liked the idea of boarding schools just a little more with every passing minute.

"Mom…there´s just like one bedroom! Where do I sleep?...Where´s MY room?", Cait asked unnerved as she stepped back into the living room / main room after she had inspected everything.

"Well, Marissa can´t stay at Summer´s for forever, so I guess, you two share the bedroom and I´ll sleep on the couch…until I found something better.", Julie answered, using the same annoying tone in her voice like her daughter.

Marissa looked down at her feet. As Julie had told her the truth, just two hours ago, she had been shocked at first, but somehow it had been okay. She knew that they would get through this and even offered to look for a job. And although she and her mom had never really been close, they even fought most of the time and she really didn´t support her mom´s priorities in life, she felt kinda awful for her right now. Julie had fought so hard to get away from this life, that she had grown up in, and now, 20 years later, she had to go all the way back; just this time with two daughters in tow. Marissa knew that she was ashamed and hurt and Caitlin wasn´t making the whole thing easier, and she couldn´t but feel pity for her mom…at least a little bit.

"You´re not serious, right!", Caitlin yelled hysterically, "No, you can´t be!"

"Caitlin, calm down! I don´t like it either, in fact I hate it, but it is how it is now and until I haven´t got a little money to get us out of here, we´re gonna have to stick with it. So get over it already!", Julie yelled back just as loudly. She was a bitch after all ;-).

"Did you just tell me to shut up?"

"I sure did and I´m your mother so I have every right to do so!"

"God, I hate you! I hate my life!"

Marissa just looked back and forth between her now crying sister to her still yelling and tired looking Mom.

This was going to be a hell of a holiday…

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Seth opened the front door of the Roberts´ mansion after nobody had answered to his impatient ringing.

"Summer?...Dr. Roberts?", he called out loud into the huge empty hall as he stepped further in.

The doors to the patio were wide open and he thought the huge Christmas tree looked kinda odd in front of the oversized pool. But this was Newport, this was Southern California after all and everything looked kinda odd in connection with Christmas…at least with Christmas in the traditional way.

The house seemed silent and desolate, except for the quiet sound of music, coming from upstairs.

He made his way up the large curved staircase to Summer´s room, the sound of one of Mariah Carey´s awful songs got even more clearer with every step until he had finally reached her bedroom door, the music now pounding in his ears.

"Summer?", he called out as he peeped into her room, the door still halfway closed.

The curtains were drawn close and the sunlight that fell through the thin material put the room into a gold glow ; Clothes laid around on the floor, making a line from her stereo, where Mariah was playing on a much higher volume than he could take, to her bed, where a little bump was formed underneath the lilac covers.

"Summer?", Seth called out again after turning down the music and making his way to the side of her bed.

"Not here!" Her voice was muffled and you didn´t need to be a genius to hear that she had cried.

"Hey, what´s wrong?", he asked concerned as he sat beside her, rubbing her back in an attempt to comfort her.

She didn´t answer though. Just her tiny and now mascara smeared arm came up from underneath the comforter, yanking at the collar of his polo and pulling him down next to her, where she immediately snuggled closer to him, facing him in the dark underneath the covers.

"What´s wrong?", he asked again, confused and concerned of what might had happened and caressed her cheek with the pad of his thumb.

Suddenly her eyes shot open and the sight of her teary and completely hurt looking eyes almost killed him. Whatever might had happened, had been harsh, according to her look and behavior.

"Not now.", she said in a quiet and shaky voice, putting her index finger to his lips, before she snuggled her almost naked body even closer to him and kissed him with everything she felt at that moment.

Seth could feel her lips quiver while they kissed and he could feel hot tears that spilled from her eyes, falling on both of their faces…but he knew better than to ask her again, cause whatever had happened, right now she just needed him to be there…

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Sandy and Kirsten where in the kitchen, he reading some newspaper, her hurrying around, cooking and summing quietly to 'White Christmas' that was playing in the background.

"Hey, you know where Ryan is?", she asked curious and with slight concern since she hadnt seen her son all day.

"Ah, I guess hes looking for some last minute stuff.", Sandy replied smirking and knowing what was about to come…

"Men."

He couldn´t suppress a laugh and Kirsten shot him a devil´s glare, about to say something, he was sure, not so nice as the phone rang to rescue him.

She shot him one last meaningful look before picking up the phone.

"Kirsten Cohen!...Oh, hey sweetie…oh…hmmm….Really?...Yeah, I guess…No, it´s not a problem…No, they´re welcome…Sure…Okay…Bye…" She laid down the receiver, shaking her head.

"I can´t believe this kid sometimes."

"Huh, what´s wrong?", Sandy asked, stepping in front of his wife.

"Nothing…Seth has invited Summer and her dad for tonight. Apparently her step-mom is outta town and he thought it would be too sad to let them celebrate on their own."

"Well, he´s your son, he has a huge heart…and besides, it´s not like Summer wouldn´t have been here most of the time anyways."

"I didn´t mean it like that! I like Summer and Neil´s very nice…I just don´t know where to put all these people…and I´m not sure if we have enough to eat…and…."

"Wow, calm down…it´s gonna be fine. And we have tons of food, so don´t worry." He rubbed his palms up and down her arms reassuringly, finding it unbelievably cute how she wanted everything to be perfect.

"I just want it to be a great Chrismukkah, you know! It´s the first without my dad and the last with the boys at home…", she stated sadly.

"Yeah, I know…but we´ve already covered that this year is the best Chrismukkah ever and the more people the more fun…"

She smiled up at him and he couldn´t but smile back.

"You know what? I just thought that there is just one person left to complete the package…my -…"

Suddenly the front door swung open and an all too familiar voice called out: "Guess who´s here?"

"…mom.", Sandy finished, the look pure shock on his face mirroring in Kirsten´s eyes."

Hope you liked it…

More is about to come. ;-)

Thx

Sarah