To TJ or not to TJ

Summary: Sandy and Kirsten in college. There's a TJ trip but they've just broken up and don't feel like going, what happens if their friends persuade them…

Disclaimer: If I owned the OC I'd have a yacht with a swimming pool on by now.

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Sunday 9th July – Em texts Panz with the idea of a TJ Kandy fic.

Saturday 15th July – Panz, having slaved away in the boiling sun of Mallorca for a week, finishes the fic.

With thanks to a) my muse (who is there for both fic ideas and moral support at 4/5/6 in the morning) and b) all my lovely, patient readers. Enjoy!

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Chapter One

'But you've got to come,' you hear your best friend whine, 'you've just got to!'

'Why?'

'Because you just do.'

'We've had this trip planned for ages,' points out another housemate.

'We're celebrating end of exams!' someone else chips in.

'And graduation.'

'And end of school.'

'I just don't really feel like celebrating right now,' you say. It's alright for them; they haven't just faced the most ill-timed break-up in college dating history. Finals had started two weeks ago and halfway through you and Sandy, following your fifth major row in three days, had had a screaming match and finally called it quits. You weren't quite sure what had happened, but the tempestuously passionate of the last six months was officially over. It had been past midnight by the time you slammed the door of Sandy's apartment, plans for a night of last minute 'revision; in tatters. Yet another casualty amidst the carnage.

You didn't cry; you calmly walked home and went to bed. The next morning you burst into tears in the middle of your psychology final. After being escorted out of the exam hall and wasting far too much time, you decided something. You were not going to let Sanford fucking Cohen (an adjective more often used in context with your previous ex) ruin all you had worked for over the past four years. You finished the paper; in fact, you probably aced it, and incited the same righteous anger in order to cope with the rest of your finals. That weekend you drank more than you had for most of the term, cried yourself into exhaustion and passed out, surprised you hadn't cried tears of neat vodka.

Suffice to say, celebrating isn't high on the agenda right now. True you've finished college, but that means you actually have to figure out your life and you didn't expect to be doing this without Sandy. Without him the threat of Newport is growing, without him you could so easily be sucked back into that bubble. And no, you certainly don't feel like joining a group of mutual friends on a celebratory TJ trip.

'I've done TJ before,' you tell them.

'Not when you were legal,' your friend, Chelsea, points out.

'So?'

'Kirsten, you can't just not go because Sandy is.'

'That has nothing to do with it.'

'Uhu.'

'I don't care what he's doing.'

'Well then, prove it.'

And that's how you end up going to Mexico.

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'I thought you said she wasn't coming,' you moan at the sight of your ex-girlfriend. She's looking gorgeous as always; short skirt, sunglasses propped up on her head and bright blonde hair in a high pony tail. Your friends look awkward for a moment.

'Well uh…she wasn't planning on going.'

'That was the only way you managed to persuade me to come.'

'Ye-ah…but come on Sandman, you can't blow the whole trip off because of a girl.'

'It's not just a girl.'

'We know, we know,' they chorus, 'it's Kirsten.'

'And I don't want to ruin her trip.'

'So you'll let her ruin yours.'

'I…'

'Tough Cohen, you're coming with us,' your best mate Paul declares. 'We're not gonna be together to celebrate your birthday later in the summer so we should do it now.'

'Great reason to celebrate.'

'Why not? Twenty three isn't old.'

'I like being twenty two.'

'Another Kirsten reference I'm guessing.'

You don't answer and your friends roll their eyes.

'Look, you don't even have to see her.'

'Yeah, because that's gonna work,' you mutter, eyes drawn to the girl leaning quietly against one of the cars whilst her friends laugh and joke around her. She looks as miserable as you feel you realise and wonder again why you let yourselves do this. Things had been great…no, you were being stupid. There was no way the pair of you could have carried on the way you were. It was too damn hard.

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Ten minutes later everyone is arguing about who is riding with who. You don't really care as long as you're not in the same car as Sandy. That would be too close for comfort. He keeps glancing at you from the safe distance of the opposite side of the circle. You wonder if he's going to apologise or something. You're afraid that if he does you'll either cry or slap him. You don't know which would be worse.

Several couples are insisting on driving down together and you know this is a bad, bad idea. All the loners will be left to either suffer a car load of lovesick couples or band together with the other unattached and that means Sandy.

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'How about splitting guys/girls?' Kirsten suggests and you sigh with relief. You don't want to be faced with either Kirsten or people making out for hours at a time. A guys' trip could be just the thing right now.

'Good idea,' someone agrees, 'but there's a problem. We have three cars but, as far as I know, no shims amongst us.'

The crows of assembled friends laugh and there are several jokes and jostling as unfortunate people are pushed forward.

'OK how about girls, guys and the couples that no one else wants to share with because they're way too cheesy and/or horny?'

There is a resounding cheer at Chelsea's suggestion and several people blush or break the current lip-lock with their partner. After a quick debate, three couples, all holding hands, are relegated to one of the vehicles and the girls head to the other. You follow the guts to the third, reflecting how, until last week, you and Kirsten would have been in the first category.

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Good start? Let me know in a review! And don't worry, I'm posting up both MIBTW and CE at the same time!

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