Part 4 of The Tempest....Ending 2...PLEASE READ THE NOTE!
Title: The Tempest
Author: cheekymice.
Rating: PG
Beta: Oh soooo not beta-ed!!...all its many mistakes are mine.
Disclaimer: I don't own The OC, Ryan or Benjamin McKenzie.
Story: For dunbaby...snagged from an idea over at oc_plotbunnies.
Notes: There are two endings to this fic so I can try and please everybody! One for the people who like Fluff McFluffy endings. The other for the angst bunnies amongst us.
********
The Tempest
Fluffy ending.
An OC fic most definitely not written by William Shakespeare.
Part 4
Kirsten couldn’t count all the feelings that enveloped her body as she stared at the wreckage of what used to be the pool house but horror, dread and paralyzing fear for Ryan were the main protagonists.
It was eerie standing in the downpour with only the sounds of the wind in the air and the rain splattering on the ground. Sandy and Seth were silent, standing as if made of stone, Kirsten was sure that the look she saw on their faces was mirrored on hers.
One of the tiles slipped off the pile of rubble in front of them and crashed down onto the marble at their feet, it was as if that singular noise broke the spell that held them in its thrall.
She called out to Ryan, screaming his name.
Sandy and Seth were already scrabbling at the ruins, both frantic as they threw dusty concrete, wood and terracotta behind them.
Kirsten ran back into the house, stubbing her bare foot against the door jam in her haste but didn’t stop to check the damage as the pain didn’t even register let alone melt the numbness that had settled itself deep in her bones. The scuffed and broken skin wept crimson on the pale wool under her foot as she dialled 911.
“ What is your emergency?” The operator calmly asked.
Kirsten wanted to curse and scream at the operator for being so cool when Ryan was currently buried under the pool house, she had no right to feel that composed when people’s lives were being torn asunder.
Kirsten choked out what had happened. She didn’t know if she was making sense as she tried to articulate how urgently they needed help. The operator with her frosty-assed voice asked her to repeat everything again. Kirsten tried to slow down; she tried to annunciate her words properly irrationally thinking that if she did then Ryan would be okay, using her words as a lifeline to a situation she couldn’t control. She was shaking as she walked out into the rain again to watch her husband and son as they worked desperately to free Ryan, explaining as she stood what had happened clearly, begging for help.
“Ma’am, just hold tight. The fire and ambulance service are on their way.”
Kirsten didn’t remember ending the call, she didn’t remember putting the phone in the pocket of her robe. She was working in autopilot now. She joined the men, ignoring the relentless wind and rain, only concentrating on getting her son out alive. They formed a chain, working a frantic and desperate ballet.
“Where are they, why aren’t they here yet?” Kirsten paused, straining her ears to see if she could hear sirens over the organic sounds of the storm, she pulled a wet lock of hair out of her eyes and took a slab of plaster from Seth.
“They’ll be here soon.” Seth said almost as if he was speaking mostly to reassure himself.
They both stared at each other; unspoken words floating in the air only to be beaten with the virtual baseball bat of hope, making the negative thoughts fall to the ground with a dull thud between them.
“Oh god…Ryan…Ryan.” Sandy’s voice broke through their telepathy and they watched his stance change as he redoubled his efforts.
Kirsten stumbled over the broken bricks and stone after Seth as they raced to where Sandy worked.
She looked down as Sandy and Seth laboured. A pale patch of Ryan’s skin peeked through a gap in the roof material. She tentatively reached out her hand and touched the grey dusty flesh, scared that she might disturb the precariously balanced debris but the need to connect with Ryan was too strong.
She squeezed his arm, scared that he wasn’t responding to her or Sandy’s words.
They worked tirelessly and quickly to clear all the rubble off of Ryan, cursing that help had not come yet. Seth mumbled that the storm must have been stopping the rescue vehicles from getting through maybe the roads were blocked. Soon a large hunk of wood was all that lay between Ryan and the help he needed. Seth grabbed at the other end of the large beam that covered Ryan, Sandy straining at the other end, his foot slipping on the sludge that was forming under their feet from the rain mixing with the powdery plaster fragments.
“You’ve got to help us Kirsten.” Sandy breathed heavily and shook the water off his face like a dog.
She reluctantly gave up her hold on Ryan and steadied herself as she gripped the wood at Seth’s end to try and pick up the slack of her son’s slight frame.
They heaved at the huge slab of wood. Teeth clenched hard with the effort, neck muscles taught and straining, shear will doubling their strength as they lifted.
Kirsten cried as her arms started to shake and her legs trembled with the extra weight bearing down on her joints.
“I can’t hold it.” She shouted.
Seth had a fixed expression on his face but the strain was also clear to see.
Sandy’s hands were also slipping on the wet wood and he knew it was only a matter of seconds before his cold and bleeding hands lost their grip. He shouted for them to swing the beam as far to the left of them as possible, away from Ryan. They used all the energy they had left and the beam crashed down with a resounding thud. They all staggered and stumbled back as it slid back towards them on the uneven surface.
Sandy didn’t have time to think, he lurched forward, grabbing Ryan by his sweatshirt and dragged him towards him as fast as he could before the beam crashed back to the place where Ryan had just been laying.
They all stared in shocked silence at what might have just happened but that quickly changed to relief that Ryan was now free of his tomb.
Sandy flipped Ryan over in his lap. He looked down at Ryan’s closed face, his eyes tightly shut and his face impassive. A thin trial of crimson ran down his cheek but apart from that he looked completely unharmed.
Sandy put aside his fear over moving Ryan because as far as he could see he had no choice. He ignored the voice in his head telling him that maybe they should have waited for professional help. So far none had arrived. The only sounds around them were of the distant crashing waves and the wind trying to find its path through the trees and houses.
“Where’s that fucking ambulance?” It was the first time he’d heard his son cuss to that extent in front of them but it probably mirrored all their sentiments.
Kirsten knelt down next to Sandy, touching Ryan’s face and gently shaking his shoulder.
“Ryan baby, please wake up.”
“He’s going to be okay…right dad?” Seth’s voice was pleading as he scrapped his sopping hair back of his face.
His father didn’t answer.
Something settled in Sandy’s stomach, a deep-seated fear that plucked at his heart and made his throat tight. It wasn’t just that Ryan was unconscious; there was something wrong in the tilt of his head and the limpness of his limbs. He swallowed thickly and stared intently down at Ryan, his eyes searching for confirmation he was mistaken.
He placed the palm of his hand flat on Ryan’s chest and placed his cheek close to Ryan’s nose. He held his breath and prayed. He borrowed from Seth’s ethos and called on Jesus, Moses, Buddha and Mohammed.
“Dad?” Seth asked for confirmation again. Sandy ignored him and pressed his hand down more firmly, worry about hurting Ryan more tempered with the need to feel the rise and fall of his chest.
“Sandy?” Kirsten joined her son’s plea for information.
Sandy lifted his head and looked at them both.
“He’s okay…he’s breathing.” He'd been so sure that Ryan wasn't breathing and the relief was unbelievable.
“Oh god…oh god…I thought…” Kirsten left the words unspoken.
“Seth, get some blankets.” Sandy asked, suddenly back into parent mode and Seth ran back into the house.
“Ryan honey.” Kirsten resumed her gentle ministrations, stroking Ryan’s arm.
For what seemed like a long time she got no response but Kirsten didn't give up. She squeezed his hand and stroked his arm some more.
And then it happened.
Ryan twitched and his eyelids flickered. Kirsten lifted her head and looked at Sandy with her eyes wide, she looked back down at Ryan.
“Honey…can you hear me?”
“Mmmm” Ryan gave a deep-throated groan and his eyes opened. He blinked up at Sandy, his eyes showing their confusion.
“What happened?”
“Don’t worry about that now Ryan, just don’t move.” Sandy gently stopped Ryan from trying to sit up.
“What happened?” He asked again as Seth returned with what appeared to be the entire contents of the linen closet.
“Dude, when you play hide and seek you really go for broke.” The levity of his tone was belied by the worry in his face. He started to pile up the blankets over Ryan.
Ryan turned his head towards Kirsten as she squeezed his hand. He winced and shut his eyes. He started shivering even though he was now sporting as much wool as a New Zealand sheep station.
“Shit, my neck hurts.” He opened his eyes but didn’t try to move his head again. “Scrub that…everything hurts. Did the storm blow down the pool house?”
“Something like that Ryan.” Sandy nodded, he tried to hold a blanket up over Ryan but it was as much use in the wind as a chocolate coffee pot.
The rain hadn't let up, if anything it was getting worse.
“We're all getting wet.” Ryan stated the obvious and it was clear that he wasn't really firing on all cylinders but it was good to hear him speak.
“Don’t worried about that.” Sandy chuckled. They were so wet now that there was no way they could get any wetter.
The wail of distant sirens carried over the sound of the storm.
“Thank god…help is on its way Ryan. I’ll go and wait for the ambulance at the bottom of the drive.” Kirsten got up and Seth immediately took her place.
“I hope they’ve remembered to bring the good drugs.” Ryan gave a shiver and winced as the movement jolted his bruised body but he also managed to give a wry smile.
“I’ll make sure they dope you up like Courtney Love at a PTA meeting.” Seth gave Ryan’s arm a soft punch.
~~~ ~~~
Kirsten felt so guilty about The Newport Group. Why hadn’t they built their pool houses incorporating the same legally ridged safety features as their houses? Why…because they were never meant to be used as permanent residences. They were only ever meant as a convenient place for the pampered of Newport to change in and out their swimsuits and mix cocktails in. At the most to be used as an occasional crash pad for drunken guests. The pool house was never meant to be a home and if she looked closely at the terms and conditions of all the deeds… as she had done many times since the storm, it stated clearly in the legal speak of the ‘obsequious don’t sue us’ kind that should any fire, earthquake or flood hit Newport then the pool house was not built to withstand such events.
Why had they let Ryan walk out into the storm that night? Because the pool house was Ryan’s home, it had become synonymous with Ryan and none of them had given it a second thought. Why hadn’t they insisted he stay inside with them that night? Why? She didn’t have an answer and she hated herself for it.
One thing she knew was that there was no way that Ryan was living outside again. The contractors were already working on re-building the pool house but this time it would remain as just that…a pool house.
Ryan whether he liked it or not was moving inside.
~~~ ~~~
Ryan was being more than tolerant to the bulky neck brace he now had to wear. It was an uncomfortable inconvenience but it wasn’t the end of the world and he could certainly cope with wearing it for the six weeks it would his neck to heal as quite frankly the alternative had scared the shit out of him. The doctors telling him that he’d come so close to breaking his neck didn’t bare thinking about. He’d had nightmares about being paralysed several times since the storm and he knew there was no way he could have dealt with being wheelchair bound.
He cheerfully put up with Seth’s jokes about the climbing frame around his head. Although he was having fun throwing Seth his patented sideways death glare, it proved very useful, as he couldn’t turn his head with out moving his whole body.
He even liked living inside. For obvious reasons the pool house had lost its appeal and it was good to have four solid walls around him even if it did mean that Seth bugged him all the time now that he didn’t have to make the effort to actually walk down the stairs and out past the pool.
The only thing he really hated about the brace though, apart from the fact that it kept him awake at night was it had seriously put a dampener on his sex life with Taylor but he was ticking the days off on a calendar and Taylor had promised to make it up to him. That was definitely something to look forward to at least.
All in all he considered himself lucky….very lucky and that wasn’t a feeling he felt that often. Life was good.
~~~ ~~~
Behind the Crab Shack the cat watched her kittens play in the sunshine. They stalked and jumped on the shadows and fragments of take out litter wafting down the ally.
The little black and white mottled kitten saw something that made its eyes grow large, it crouched low and wriggled its behind several times before it pounced.
The butterfly fluttered above the ground, always just out of the kittens reach.
The kitten quickly lost interest when the butterfly flew higher and higher into the sky. The kitten bounced back over to its brother and sisters as they batted and bit each other in a high-energy game of tag.
The cat let her kittens play and rolled on her back in the dust, for once content with the world.
The End
Author: cheekymice.
Rating: PG
Beta: Oh soooo not beta-ed!!...all its many mistakes are mine.
Disclaimer: I don't own The OC, Ryan or Benjamin McKenzie.
Story: For dunbaby...snagged from an idea over at oc_plotbunnies.
Notes: There are two endings to this fic so I can try and please everybody! One for the people who like Fluff McFluffy endings. The other for the angst bunnies amongst us.
********
The Tempest
Fluffy ending.
An OC fic most definitely not written by William Shakespeare.
Part 4
Kirsten couldn’t count all the feelings that enveloped her body as she stared at the wreckage of what used to be the pool house but horror, dread and paralyzing fear for Ryan were the main protagonists.
It was eerie standing in the downpour with only the sounds of the wind in the air and the rain splattering on the ground. Sandy and Seth were silent, standing as if made of stone, Kirsten was sure that the look she saw on their faces was mirrored on hers.
One of the tiles slipped off the pile of rubble in front of them and crashed down onto the marble at their feet, it was as if that singular noise broke the spell that held them in its thrall.
She called out to Ryan, screaming his name.
Sandy and Seth were already scrabbling at the ruins, both frantic as they threw dusty concrete, wood and terracotta behind them.
Kirsten ran back into the house, stubbing her bare foot against the door jam in her haste but didn’t stop to check the damage as the pain didn’t even register let alone melt the numbness that had settled itself deep in her bones. The scuffed and broken skin wept crimson on the pale wool under her foot as she dialled 911.
“ What is your emergency?” The operator calmly asked.
Kirsten wanted to curse and scream at the operator for being so cool when Ryan was currently buried under the pool house, she had no right to feel that composed when people’s lives were being torn asunder.
Kirsten choked out what had happened. She didn’t know if she was making sense as she tried to articulate how urgently they needed help. The operator with her frosty-assed voice asked her to repeat everything again. Kirsten tried to slow down; she tried to annunciate her words properly irrationally thinking that if she did then Ryan would be okay, using her words as a lifeline to a situation she couldn’t control. She was shaking as she walked out into the rain again to watch her husband and son as they worked desperately to free Ryan, explaining as she stood what had happened clearly, begging for help.
“Ma’am, just hold tight. The fire and ambulance service are on their way.”
Kirsten didn’t remember ending the call, she didn’t remember putting the phone in the pocket of her robe. She was working in autopilot now. She joined the men, ignoring the relentless wind and rain, only concentrating on getting her son out alive. They formed a chain, working a frantic and desperate ballet.
“Where are they, why aren’t they here yet?” Kirsten paused, straining her ears to see if she could hear sirens over the organic sounds of the storm, she pulled a wet lock of hair out of her eyes and took a slab of plaster from Seth.
“They’ll be here soon.” Seth said almost as if he was speaking mostly to reassure himself.
They both stared at each other; unspoken words floating in the air only to be beaten with the virtual baseball bat of hope, making the negative thoughts fall to the ground with a dull thud between them.
“Oh god…Ryan…Ryan.” Sandy’s voice broke through their telepathy and they watched his stance change as he redoubled his efforts.
Kirsten stumbled over the broken bricks and stone after Seth as they raced to where Sandy worked.
She looked down as Sandy and Seth laboured. A pale patch of Ryan’s skin peeked through a gap in the roof material. She tentatively reached out her hand and touched the grey dusty flesh, scared that she might disturb the precariously balanced debris but the need to connect with Ryan was too strong.
She squeezed his arm, scared that he wasn’t responding to her or Sandy’s words.
They worked tirelessly and quickly to clear all the rubble off of Ryan, cursing that help had not come yet. Seth mumbled that the storm must have been stopping the rescue vehicles from getting through maybe the roads were blocked. Soon a large hunk of wood was all that lay between Ryan and the help he needed. Seth grabbed at the other end of the large beam that covered Ryan, Sandy straining at the other end, his foot slipping on the sludge that was forming under their feet from the rain mixing with the powdery plaster fragments.
“You’ve got to help us Kirsten.” Sandy breathed heavily and shook the water off his face like a dog.
She reluctantly gave up her hold on Ryan and steadied herself as she gripped the wood at Seth’s end to try and pick up the slack of her son’s slight frame.
They heaved at the huge slab of wood. Teeth clenched hard with the effort, neck muscles taught and straining, shear will doubling their strength as they lifted.
Kirsten cried as her arms started to shake and her legs trembled with the extra weight bearing down on her joints.
“I can’t hold it.” She shouted.
Seth had a fixed expression on his face but the strain was also clear to see.
Sandy’s hands were also slipping on the wet wood and he knew it was only a matter of seconds before his cold and bleeding hands lost their grip. He shouted for them to swing the beam as far to the left of them as possible, away from Ryan. They used all the energy they had left and the beam crashed down with a resounding thud. They all staggered and stumbled back as it slid back towards them on the uneven surface.
Sandy didn’t have time to think, he lurched forward, grabbing Ryan by his sweatshirt and dragged him towards him as fast as he could before the beam crashed back to the place where Ryan had just been laying.
They all stared in shocked silence at what might have just happened but that quickly changed to relief that Ryan was now free of his tomb.
Sandy flipped Ryan over in his lap. He looked down at Ryan’s closed face, his eyes tightly shut and his face impassive. A thin trial of crimson ran down his cheek but apart from that he looked completely unharmed.
Sandy put aside his fear over moving Ryan because as far as he could see he had no choice. He ignored the voice in his head telling him that maybe they should have waited for professional help. So far none had arrived. The only sounds around them were of the distant crashing waves and the wind trying to find its path through the trees and houses.
“Where’s that fucking ambulance?” It was the first time he’d heard his son cuss to that extent in front of them but it probably mirrored all their sentiments.
Kirsten knelt down next to Sandy, touching Ryan’s face and gently shaking his shoulder.
“Ryan baby, please wake up.”
“He’s going to be okay…right dad?” Seth’s voice was pleading as he scrapped his sopping hair back of his face.
His father didn’t answer.
Something settled in Sandy’s stomach, a deep-seated fear that plucked at his heart and made his throat tight. It wasn’t just that Ryan was unconscious; there was something wrong in the tilt of his head and the limpness of his limbs. He swallowed thickly and stared intently down at Ryan, his eyes searching for confirmation he was mistaken.
He placed the palm of his hand flat on Ryan’s chest and placed his cheek close to Ryan’s nose. He held his breath and prayed. He borrowed from Seth’s ethos and called on Jesus, Moses, Buddha and Mohammed.
“Dad?” Seth asked for confirmation again. Sandy ignored him and pressed his hand down more firmly, worry about hurting Ryan more tempered with the need to feel the rise and fall of his chest.
“Sandy?” Kirsten joined her son’s plea for information.
Sandy lifted his head and looked at them both.
“He’s okay…he’s breathing.” He'd been so sure that Ryan wasn't breathing and the relief was unbelievable.
“Oh god…oh god…I thought…” Kirsten left the words unspoken.
“Seth, get some blankets.” Sandy asked, suddenly back into parent mode and Seth ran back into the house.
“Ryan honey.” Kirsten resumed her gentle ministrations, stroking Ryan’s arm.
For what seemed like a long time she got no response but Kirsten didn't give up. She squeezed his hand and stroked his arm some more.
And then it happened.
Ryan twitched and his eyelids flickered. Kirsten lifted her head and looked at Sandy with her eyes wide, she looked back down at Ryan.
“Honey…can you hear me?”
“Mmmm” Ryan gave a deep-throated groan and his eyes opened. He blinked up at Sandy, his eyes showing their confusion.
“What happened?”
“Don’t worry about that now Ryan, just don’t move.” Sandy gently stopped Ryan from trying to sit up.
“What happened?” He asked again as Seth returned with what appeared to be the entire contents of the linen closet.
“Dude, when you play hide and seek you really go for broke.” The levity of his tone was belied by the worry in his face. He started to pile up the blankets over Ryan.
Ryan turned his head towards Kirsten as she squeezed his hand. He winced and shut his eyes. He started shivering even though he was now sporting as much wool as a New Zealand sheep station.
“Shit, my neck hurts.” He opened his eyes but didn’t try to move his head again. “Scrub that…everything hurts. Did the storm blow down the pool house?”
“Something like that Ryan.” Sandy nodded, he tried to hold a blanket up over Ryan but it was as much use in the wind as a chocolate coffee pot.
The rain hadn't let up, if anything it was getting worse.
“We're all getting wet.” Ryan stated the obvious and it was clear that he wasn't really firing on all cylinders but it was good to hear him speak.
“Don’t worried about that.” Sandy chuckled. They were so wet now that there was no way they could get any wetter.
The wail of distant sirens carried over the sound of the storm.
“Thank god…help is on its way Ryan. I’ll go and wait for the ambulance at the bottom of the drive.” Kirsten got up and Seth immediately took her place.
“I hope they’ve remembered to bring the good drugs.” Ryan gave a shiver and winced as the movement jolted his bruised body but he also managed to give a wry smile.
“I’ll make sure they dope you up like Courtney Love at a PTA meeting.” Seth gave Ryan’s arm a soft punch.
~~~ ~~~
Kirsten felt so guilty about The Newport Group. Why hadn’t they built their pool houses incorporating the same legally ridged safety features as their houses? Why…because they were never meant to be used as permanent residences. They were only ever meant as a convenient place for the pampered of Newport to change in and out their swimsuits and mix cocktails in. At the most to be used as an occasional crash pad for drunken guests. The pool house was never meant to be a home and if she looked closely at the terms and conditions of all the deeds… as she had done many times since the storm, it stated clearly in the legal speak of the ‘obsequious don’t sue us’ kind that should any fire, earthquake or flood hit Newport then the pool house was not built to withstand such events.
Why had they let Ryan walk out into the storm that night? Because the pool house was Ryan’s home, it had become synonymous with Ryan and none of them had given it a second thought. Why hadn’t they insisted he stay inside with them that night? Why? She didn’t have an answer and she hated herself for it.
One thing she knew was that there was no way that Ryan was living outside again. The contractors were already working on re-building the pool house but this time it would remain as just that…a pool house.
Ryan whether he liked it or not was moving inside.
~~~ ~~~
Ryan was being more than tolerant to the bulky neck brace he now had to wear. It was an uncomfortable inconvenience but it wasn’t the end of the world and he could certainly cope with wearing it for the six weeks it would his neck to heal as quite frankly the alternative had scared the shit out of him. The doctors telling him that he’d come so close to breaking his neck didn’t bare thinking about. He’d had nightmares about being paralysed several times since the storm and he knew there was no way he could have dealt with being wheelchair bound.
He cheerfully put up with Seth’s jokes about the climbing frame around his head. Although he was having fun throwing Seth his patented sideways death glare, it proved very useful, as he couldn’t turn his head with out moving his whole body.
He even liked living inside. For obvious reasons the pool house had lost its appeal and it was good to have four solid walls around him even if it did mean that Seth bugged him all the time now that he didn’t have to make the effort to actually walk down the stairs and out past the pool.
The only thing he really hated about the brace though, apart from the fact that it kept him awake at night was it had seriously put a dampener on his sex life with Taylor but he was ticking the days off on a calendar and Taylor had promised to make it up to him. That was definitely something to look forward to at least.
All in all he considered himself lucky….very lucky and that wasn’t a feeling he felt that often. Life was good.
~~~ ~~~
Behind the Crab Shack the cat watched her kittens play in the sunshine. They stalked and jumped on the shadows and fragments of take out litter wafting down the ally.
The little black and white mottled kitten saw something that made its eyes grow large, it crouched low and wriggled its behind several times before it pounced.
The butterfly fluttered above the ground, always just out of the kittens reach.
The kitten quickly lost interest when the butterfly flew higher and higher into the sky. The kitten bounced back over to its brother and sisters as they batted and bit each other in a high-energy game of tag.
The cat let her kittens play and rolled on her back in the dust, for once content with the world.
The End