OC Fic : Mothers and Sons (3/6)
Work totally kicked my ass this week.
::is dead::
Title : Mothers and Sons
Author : Helen C.
Rating : PG-13
Summary : Dawn and Ryan, and their f'cked up relationship. Also, Theresa and Ryan and their slightly less f'cked up relationship.
Disclaimer : The characters and the universe were created and are owned by Josh Schwartz. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
AN1. This one was inspired by brandywine421's awesome breathe out, breathe in
AN2. I just wanted to explore some more the relationship between Ryan and Dawn (as if entire novels haven't been written about it already!).
I should warn that this is Ryan/Theresa. And yes, I should have remembered beforehand that I suck at writing romance, but the pairing is not the point of the story. I don't know what the point of the story is. I'll just let you guys decide.
Many thanks, as usual, to the ever awesome joey51
Chapter Three
Seth never really stopped joking about Ryan's lack of verbal skill and how it would have an impact on his future career as a lawyer.
"Don't forget, if you want to win, you need to win them over, not glare at them."
"Er, Ryan, remember that you can't actually punch the opposite counsel."
Most times, the jokes amused Ryan.
He had to admit that becoming a lawyer was kind of a stretch for him-"You're one of the bad guys now, then," Trey told him when he learned about Ryan's decision. Ryan remembered all too clearly what he had once thought about lawyer-stupid, condescending assholes who never managed to keep his brother out of jail.
He might have been hurt at Seth and Trey's lack of tact (and apparent lack of support) but every once in a while, they stopped making bad jokes. These times, Ryan was reminded yet again that it was good to have a family that believed in him, even if that family was driving him mad a good ninety percent of the time.
"Can I call you if I ever need a good lawyer?" Trey once asked. Ryan could hear the unspoken awe in his brother's voice, and he could guess where it came from-one of them was actually managing to survive, and become something other than a long-term jailbird/on-the-run felon.
"How do you know I'll be a good lawyer?"
"Come on, bro, it's you. Of course, you'll be good."
Even after everything that had happened between them, knowing that his brother believed in him was still worth a lot-but maybe not as much as Seth, walking up to him one evening, subdued and almost sheepish.
"Summer heard me make a…" he trailed off.
"Tasteless crack? Bad pun about lawyers with laryngitis? Stupid joke?" Ryan supplied. Summer had grown softer since high school, but she could still kick Seth's ass on a regular basis, and didn't hesitate to do so when she thought it was warranted.
Actually, Ryan had always had a healthy respect for her, and avoided incurring her wrath as a matter of course.
Theresa was keeping him in check well enough ("You're so whipped," Seth kept saying. "You're one to talk," Ryan usually replied. And they both complained about the woes of the twenty-first century males, just as long as their respective girlfriends weren't around to hear them). He didn't want Summer on his case as well.
"Yeah, that," Seth said. "And she pointed out to me that maybe, all these jokes may make you believe that I…" He groaned. "Man, I can't do this. I mean, we're friends, but…"
Ryan nodded in agreement. "Not so much with the whole talking about our feelings thing?"
Seth snapped his fingers in Ryan's direction, head bobbing up and down in agreement. "Totally. And you know that if I ever need someone to get me out of jail, you'll be my first call, right? No question about that."
"Your dad's a lawyer too," Ryan pointed out, amused. Only Seth would go through that kind of mental gymnastic to avoid saying, "I'm sorry."
Sometimes, it was endearing. Other times, it was damn infuriating.
Like Seth himself, really. He could be the best friend Ryan could hope for or an oblivious asshole, and sometimes both at the same time. It was Seth, so most people ignored it or accepted it.
Ryan usually didn't regret letting these things go.
When Seth decided he had Ryan's back, it made all the bad times worthwhile.
"Dude," Seth wheedled, "if I end up in jail, it'll be embarrassing, and I ain't telling my dad about it." He mock-shuddered. "No, it'll be one for team Seth/Ryan." He sounded uncertain all of a sudden. "That is, if you don't mind saving a sorry graphic novel artist's ass."
Ryan smiled. "Sure thing. But Seth?"
Seth raised an eyebrow at him, gesturing that he should go on. Ryan wondered if his friend had already noticed that his eyebrows had shown a tendency to thicken recently. Since there hadn't been a panicked phone call at three in the morning yet, he supposed not.
"If you want me to do a good job with your future, hypothetically embarrassing case, I strongly suggest you throw away these sketches of Kid Chino with the tights, and nothing else."
Seth gave him a thumb up. He almost looked serious. "Absolutely."
Ryan didn't believe him for a second.
***
It turned out that Seth had been wrong.
Ryan didn't need to convince much of anyone, at least at first. The first four cases he handled were settled outside the courtroom. The fifth case ended in front of a sixty-five-year-old judge-a veteran who had heard too many dragging arguments between lawyers and didn't put up with nonsense anymore.
Ryan, who had always had the ability to destroy the most well-constructed arguments with a single word, did what he did best; he allowed the plaintiff's lawyer to talk, gesturing broadly and getting lost in details, and when his turn came, he got to his feet, calmly used facts to counteract everything that had been said, and won the case.
"Not bad for your first time in court," his assistant said, handing him his next file.
"It wasn't my first time in court, technically," he retorted.
She shook her head disapprovingly, reminding him of Theresa. "You know what I mean."
He did. "Thanks."
"Now, get to work on the next one," she ordered, ushering him to his office.
Why every woman he knew, from Theresa to this tiny, perky young girl, kept bossing him around was a mystery.
Ryan wisely chose to comply.
He really didn't want to get on the bad side of any of the women he knew.
***
It wasn't long after that case that Ryan eventually found the courage to ask Sandy, "Are you disappointed in me?"
They were grilling food on the patio, enjoying the sun while Kirsten and Theresa cooed over Daniel, and Seth tried to contain Summer's hysteria about the latest adventures of Miss Vixen.
He had been wanting to ask for a long while now what Sandy thought about his decision to go work for a private firm-with his own office, and the possibility to make a lot of money really fast, assuming he could make an impression.
Ryan felt like a novice swimmer thrown in an ocean filled with sharks-and the fact that these were lawyers made the image more than a little cliché, but it was still apt.
He was thoroughly out of his element, and to his own surprise, he was enjoying every minute of it. It felt good to step up to a challenge, it felt good to discover what he was capable of now that he was out of college, and trying to jumpstart his career.
He hated how self-involved it made him sound, even to himself, but he couldn't deny it-especially not to himself.
"Disappointed?" Sandy asked. Ryan tried to read his tone of voice, but Sandy had too much practice hiding his disappointments from him.
He shrugged. "Well, I remember it… surprised me when you went for private practice, back when I first came to live here. And, well…" He gave Sandy a rueful smile. "Now you're back to helping kids, and I'm, you know…"
"Working in private practice," Sandy finished for him. He turned the steaks on the grill, smiling softly. "I guess I'm just… surprised, as well."
Ryan snorted, fingering the label on his beer bottle. "Yeah, well…"
Sandy turned to face him. "Why did you accept the job, if I may ask?"
Ryan shrugged. "Well, I need to start somewhere."
Sandy nodded, encouraging him to continue.
"I'll get to public defendant work eventually," Ryan went on. Because enjoying a challenge was all well and good, but the day he turned into another workaholic careerist was the day someone would have to shoot him and put him out of his misery. "I guess I just want to do a good job when I get there, and I need to learn the ropes somewhere."
Sandy looked on, surprised. "You could learn the ropes and still do that job, kid."
Ryan shook his head, eyes drifting to the sea. "Probably. But… Well, I'll probably never plead a case in front of a jury, because let's face it, I'd lose, but I need to at least be able to convince judges, you know. If I'm to help these kids… I've been where some of them are, Sandy. And if I had gotten a crappy lawyer, like Trey sometimes did, I know what I'd be condemning them to."
Sandy shot a look at the meat grilling, making sure it wasn't burning, then came to sit next to Ryan. "You'll lose cases sometimes, Ryan. And frankly? Same cases, you should lose."
Ryan nodded. He knew how dangerous some of the kids in Juvie were, knew they couldn't be allowed to roam the streets either. His heart went to them too, because he could only guess what had driven them to that point, and what he guessed hurt.
"I know," he said. "But there are also kids there that are…"
"Like you," Sandy added. "Yes. Yes, there are."
Did you ever meet another one like me, Sandy? Why am I the only one you ever brought home? It's not trust in the system, I know that. You don't really believe in the wisdom of Social Services.
Why not another?
Why not several others?
Why me?
Do you think I'll ever be able to make that kind of leap of faith, if I meet someone who needs my help?
Do you think I can make a difference, too?
Sandy clasped Ryan's shoulder. "You'll get it, kid. And unfortunately, there'll still be kids needing help when you're ready."
A cold fact if there ever was one.
There would always be kids without hope who took out their anger on the world.
Ryan knew he wouldn't be a Sandy to most of them, nor should he even try.
He also knew that it wouldn't stop him from trying to help these kids as much as he could.
***
The phone rang in the middle of the night, startling him.
Theresa groaned and rolled over. "Let the answering machine take it," she said.
Ryan hummed in agreement and buried deeper under the covers.
Seth's voice surprised Ryan. His friend was obviously drunk, and he could hear Summer's laughter in the background.
"Dude! I think my eyebrows are evolving. I think they're becoming something else."
Seth breathed heavily into the phone for a while. Ryan could feel Theresa's eyes on him, could hear her holding her breath.
"Ryan. I need help, man. I think they're turning into the Eyebrows of Death. It's not funny. It's scary. Dude? Ryan?"
Ryan and Theresa laughed so hard that they woke up Daniel.
***
It shouldn't have surprised him, considering how good he felt and how normal life was, that Dawn called him shortly after Seth's epiphany, after several years of silence.
She was crying, asking for his help.
Could he please come?
She needed her baby to come for her.
There was a man yelling in the background.
It wasn't AJ.
Ryan unconsciously traced the scar that ran along his hairline, the only scar Dr. Roberts hadn't been able to do anything about. "It's just too deep, I'm sorry," he had said.
It was mostly hidden by his hair, but Ryan could never forget that it was there-like he had never forgotten all the other scars that once marred his face; scars on his cheeks, on his nose, on his chin.
"Baby, please…"
He heard his own voice reply, in a detached tone, "I'll be there as soon as I can."
He hung up, sank into his chair and took several deep breaths, waiting for the light-headedness to pass. When his brain kicked back into gear and started complaining loudly about Ryan's gut making decisions without its approval, he searched his wallet for the card Sandy had given him after his encounter with a glass door.
Ryan had promised then not to rush headlong into this kind of situations anymore but everyone (Ryan included) had known better than to believe it.
Dawn would get into trouble again.
Ryan would try to help her, because that was his nature.
So, Sandy had given Ryan the card of a friend of his. "He's a PI. He's worked a lot in protection. Call him if she calls you."
Ryan had tried to protest, but Sandy hadn't listened. "Tell him about the whole situation or don't, but please, Ryan, at least call him if you need to go see Dawn."
"A bodyguard, Sandy?" Ryan had said, giving a wry smile. You think I need a bodyguard to see my own mother?
"Ryan, I get that the situation is complicated, but it can't hurt taking some precautions."
Ryan could have argued but the Cohens had more than earned the right to forbid him to see his family. They had never done it, had never even tried to use his lingering feelings of guilt and inadequacy against him.
All they had ever asked of him was that he remained safe; he could give them that.
He wasn't going to put the Cohens through another night at the hospital, waiting for him to wake up.
With fingers he willed to be steady, he punched in the numbers.
"Chris Sanders, private investigations," a man answered.
"Hi. I'm… Hm, Ryan Atwood," Ryan started hesitantly. He didn't have time to start explaining who he was.
"Sandy's kid, right," the man interrupted. "He once said you might call. Need some company to go somewhere?"
Ryan spared a thought to wonder exactly what Sandy had told the guy, and for how long he had waited for that kind of call, then dismissed it.
"Yeah." He quickly gave Chris the address and hung up, heart beating.
Ignoring the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Ryan grabbed his keys and hurried out of his apartment, fighting down the bad taste of deja-vu.
***
The back-up proved to be necessary (and thankfully efficient).
Chris, it turned out, had a commanding presence and wasn't shy about using it.
Dawn's boyfriend, unsurprisingly, was huge-several inches taller than Ryan, and probably ten to fifteen pounds heavier as well.
Why did Dawn keep dragging these giants home anyway?
Did they really make her feel safer? From Dawn's hiccups and tears upon seeing him, he didn't think so.
"Brought your boyfriend with you, punk?" the man asked when he saw Chris stand at Ryan's shoulder.
Ryan rolled his eyes. "Whatever." He looked at Dawn and tried not to show his reaction to seeing her in such a state. She must have been at least twenty pounds underweight, her hair was matted to her face, she was covered in bruises, and, Ryan noticed with a sinking stomach, track marks on her arms. "So, come with us or don't, but hurry up," he said. Maybe anger and coldness would shock her into complying.
She took a hesitant step towards him.
"Who the hell do you think makes the decisions here?" the boyfriend snarled. "A little respect here, son."
Ryan gave him his coldest look. "I'm not your son."
The boyfriend raised his beer bottle as if to throw it at Ryan, who didn't move an inch. Dawn had frozen and was staring at the scene the way she'd look at a tennis match.
Chris took a step forward, said, "Mrs. Atwood, I suggest you follow us quickly."
She swallowed but got moving again, and Ryan heaved a discreet sigh of relief.
At least, she was willing to follow the man giving orders, if she wasn't willing to listen to her own son.
"As for you," Chris added, levelling a glare at the boyfriend, "if you don't let go of that beer bottle, I know some people in the police department, and from your general attitude, I'm sure they'd just love to hold you for the night on general principle." He smiled coldly. "Is that sugar on the table?"
The man grimaced but got the point, and released his hold on the bottle.
Ryan herded Dawn to the door, Chris following them closely. His eyes never left the boyfriend, who was yelling that Dawn wasn't to come back after this.
Ryan didn't see how anyone would want to go back to that man, but he assumed Dawn would see things differently, once she sobered up.
***
He didn't get a chance to see if he had been right or not.
Chris dropped them off at Ryan's place, Ryan told Dawn to take a shower while he was taking a short trip to the nearest grocery for supplies and when he came back, she was gone already.
There was a note on the kitchen counter.
Ryan didn't bother reading it.
Chapter Four
::is dead::
Title : Mothers and Sons
Author : Helen C.
Rating : PG-13
Summary : Dawn and Ryan, and their f'cked up relationship. Also, Theresa and Ryan and their slightly less f'cked up relationship.
Disclaimer : The characters and the universe were created and are owned by Josh Schwartz. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
AN1. This one was inspired by brandywine421's awesome breathe out, breathe in
AN2. I just wanted to explore some more the relationship between Ryan and Dawn (as if entire novels haven't been written about it already!).
I should warn that this is Ryan/Theresa. And yes, I should have remembered beforehand that I suck at writing romance, but the pairing is not the point of the story. I don't know what the point of the story is. I'll just let you guys decide.
Many thanks, as usual, to the ever awesome joey51
Chapter Three
Seth never really stopped joking about Ryan's lack of verbal skill and how it would have an impact on his future career as a lawyer.
"Don't forget, if you want to win, you need to win them over, not glare at them."
"Er, Ryan, remember that you can't actually punch the opposite counsel."
Most times, the jokes amused Ryan.
He had to admit that becoming a lawyer was kind of a stretch for him-"You're one of the bad guys now, then," Trey told him when he learned about Ryan's decision. Ryan remembered all too clearly what he had once thought about lawyer-stupid, condescending assholes who never managed to keep his brother out of jail.
He might have been hurt at Seth and Trey's lack of tact (and apparent lack of support) but every once in a while, they stopped making bad jokes. These times, Ryan was reminded yet again that it was good to have a family that believed in him, even if that family was driving him mad a good ninety percent of the time.
"Can I call you if I ever need a good lawyer?" Trey once asked. Ryan could hear the unspoken awe in his brother's voice, and he could guess where it came from-one of them was actually managing to survive, and become something other than a long-term jailbird/on-the-run felon.
"How do you know I'll be a good lawyer?"
"Come on, bro, it's you. Of course, you'll be good."
Even after everything that had happened between them, knowing that his brother believed in him was still worth a lot-but maybe not as much as Seth, walking up to him one evening, subdued and almost sheepish.
"Summer heard me make a…" he trailed off.
"Tasteless crack? Bad pun about lawyers with laryngitis? Stupid joke?" Ryan supplied. Summer had grown softer since high school, but she could still kick Seth's ass on a regular basis, and didn't hesitate to do so when she thought it was warranted.
Actually, Ryan had always had a healthy respect for her, and avoided incurring her wrath as a matter of course.
Theresa was keeping him in check well enough ("You're so whipped," Seth kept saying. "You're one to talk," Ryan usually replied. And they both complained about the woes of the twenty-first century males, just as long as their respective girlfriends weren't around to hear them). He didn't want Summer on his case as well.
"Yeah, that," Seth said. "And she pointed out to me that maybe, all these jokes may make you believe that I…" He groaned. "Man, I can't do this. I mean, we're friends, but…"
Ryan nodded in agreement. "Not so much with the whole talking about our feelings thing?"
Seth snapped his fingers in Ryan's direction, head bobbing up and down in agreement. "Totally. And you know that if I ever need someone to get me out of jail, you'll be my first call, right? No question about that."
"Your dad's a lawyer too," Ryan pointed out, amused. Only Seth would go through that kind of mental gymnastic to avoid saying, "I'm sorry."
Sometimes, it was endearing. Other times, it was damn infuriating.
Like Seth himself, really. He could be the best friend Ryan could hope for or an oblivious asshole, and sometimes both at the same time. It was Seth, so most people ignored it or accepted it.
Ryan usually didn't regret letting these things go.
When Seth decided he had Ryan's back, it made all the bad times worthwhile.
"Dude," Seth wheedled, "if I end up in jail, it'll be embarrassing, and I ain't telling my dad about it." He mock-shuddered. "No, it'll be one for team Seth/Ryan." He sounded uncertain all of a sudden. "That is, if you don't mind saving a sorry graphic novel artist's ass."
Ryan smiled. "Sure thing. But Seth?"
Seth raised an eyebrow at him, gesturing that he should go on. Ryan wondered if his friend had already noticed that his eyebrows had shown a tendency to thicken recently. Since there hadn't been a panicked phone call at three in the morning yet, he supposed not.
"If you want me to do a good job with your future, hypothetically embarrassing case, I strongly suggest you throw away these sketches of Kid Chino with the tights, and nothing else."
Seth gave him a thumb up. He almost looked serious. "Absolutely."
Ryan didn't believe him for a second.
***
It turned out that Seth had been wrong.
Ryan didn't need to convince much of anyone, at least at first. The first four cases he handled were settled outside the courtroom. The fifth case ended in front of a sixty-five-year-old judge-a veteran who had heard too many dragging arguments between lawyers and didn't put up with nonsense anymore.
Ryan, who had always had the ability to destroy the most well-constructed arguments with a single word, did what he did best; he allowed the plaintiff's lawyer to talk, gesturing broadly and getting lost in details, and when his turn came, he got to his feet, calmly used facts to counteract everything that had been said, and won the case.
"Not bad for your first time in court," his assistant said, handing him his next file.
"It wasn't my first time in court, technically," he retorted.
She shook her head disapprovingly, reminding him of Theresa. "You know what I mean."
He did. "Thanks."
"Now, get to work on the next one," she ordered, ushering him to his office.
Why every woman he knew, from Theresa to this tiny, perky young girl, kept bossing him around was a mystery.
Ryan wisely chose to comply.
He really didn't want to get on the bad side of any of the women he knew.
***
It wasn't long after that case that Ryan eventually found the courage to ask Sandy, "Are you disappointed in me?"
They were grilling food on the patio, enjoying the sun while Kirsten and Theresa cooed over Daniel, and Seth tried to contain Summer's hysteria about the latest adventures of Miss Vixen.
He had been wanting to ask for a long while now what Sandy thought about his decision to go work for a private firm-with his own office, and the possibility to make a lot of money really fast, assuming he could make an impression.
Ryan felt like a novice swimmer thrown in an ocean filled with sharks-and the fact that these were lawyers made the image more than a little cliché, but it was still apt.
He was thoroughly out of his element, and to his own surprise, he was enjoying every minute of it. It felt good to step up to a challenge, it felt good to discover what he was capable of now that he was out of college, and trying to jumpstart his career.
He hated how self-involved it made him sound, even to himself, but he couldn't deny it-especially not to himself.
"Disappointed?" Sandy asked. Ryan tried to read his tone of voice, but Sandy had too much practice hiding his disappointments from him.
He shrugged. "Well, I remember it… surprised me when you went for private practice, back when I first came to live here. And, well…" He gave Sandy a rueful smile. "Now you're back to helping kids, and I'm, you know…"
"Working in private practice," Sandy finished for him. He turned the steaks on the grill, smiling softly. "I guess I'm just… surprised, as well."
Ryan snorted, fingering the label on his beer bottle. "Yeah, well…"
Sandy turned to face him. "Why did you accept the job, if I may ask?"
Ryan shrugged. "Well, I need to start somewhere."
Sandy nodded, encouraging him to continue.
"I'll get to public defendant work eventually," Ryan went on. Because enjoying a challenge was all well and good, but the day he turned into another workaholic careerist was the day someone would have to shoot him and put him out of his misery. "I guess I just want to do a good job when I get there, and I need to learn the ropes somewhere."
Sandy looked on, surprised. "You could learn the ropes and still do that job, kid."
Ryan shook his head, eyes drifting to the sea. "Probably. But… Well, I'll probably never plead a case in front of a jury, because let's face it, I'd lose, but I need to at least be able to convince judges, you know. If I'm to help these kids… I've been where some of them are, Sandy. And if I had gotten a crappy lawyer, like Trey sometimes did, I know what I'd be condemning them to."
Sandy shot a look at the meat grilling, making sure it wasn't burning, then came to sit next to Ryan. "You'll lose cases sometimes, Ryan. And frankly? Same cases, you should lose."
Ryan nodded. He knew how dangerous some of the kids in Juvie were, knew they couldn't be allowed to roam the streets either. His heart went to them too, because he could only guess what had driven them to that point, and what he guessed hurt.
"I know," he said. "But there are also kids there that are…"
"Like you," Sandy added. "Yes. Yes, there are."
Did you ever meet another one like me, Sandy? Why am I the only one you ever brought home? It's not trust in the system, I know that. You don't really believe in the wisdom of Social Services.
Why not another?
Why not several others?
Why me?
Do you think I'll ever be able to make that kind of leap of faith, if I meet someone who needs my help?
Do you think I can make a difference, too?
Sandy clasped Ryan's shoulder. "You'll get it, kid. And unfortunately, there'll still be kids needing help when you're ready."
A cold fact if there ever was one.
There would always be kids without hope who took out their anger on the world.
Ryan knew he wouldn't be a Sandy to most of them, nor should he even try.
He also knew that it wouldn't stop him from trying to help these kids as much as he could.
***
The phone rang in the middle of the night, startling him.
Theresa groaned and rolled over. "Let the answering machine take it," she said.
Ryan hummed in agreement and buried deeper under the covers.
Seth's voice surprised Ryan. His friend was obviously drunk, and he could hear Summer's laughter in the background.
"Dude! I think my eyebrows are evolving. I think they're becoming something else."
Seth breathed heavily into the phone for a while. Ryan could feel Theresa's eyes on him, could hear her holding her breath.
"Ryan. I need help, man. I think they're turning into the Eyebrows of Death. It's not funny. It's scary. Dude? Ryan?"
Ryan and Theresa laughed so hard that they woke up Daniel.
***
It shouldn't have surprised him, considering how good he felt and how normal life was, that Dawn called him shortly after Seth's epiphany, after several years of silence.
She was crying, asking for his help.
Could he please come?
She needed her baby to come for her.
There was a man yelling in the background.
It wasn't AJ.
Ryan unconsciously traced the scar that ran along his hairline, the only scar Dr. Roberts hadn't been able to do anything about. "It's just too deep, I'm sorry," he had said.
It was mostly hidden by his hair, but Ryan could never forget that it was there-like he had never forgotten all the other scars that once marred his face; scars on his cheeks, on his nose, on his chin.
"Baby, please…"
He heard his own voice reply, in a detached tone, "I'll be there as soon as I can."
He hung up, sank into his chair and took several deep breaths, waiting for the light-headedness to pass. When his brain kicked back into gear and started complaining loudly about Ryan's gut making decisions without its approval, he searched his wallet for the card Sandy had given him after his encounter with a glass door.
Ryan had promised then not to rush headlong into this kind of situations anymore but everyone (Ryan included) had known better than to believe it.
Dawn would get into trouble again.
Ryan would try to help her, because that was his nature.
So, Sandy had given Ryan the card of a friend of his. "He's a PI. He's worked a lot in protection. Call him if she calls you."
Ryan had tried to protest, but Sandy hadn't listened. "Tell him about the whole situation or don't, but please, Ryan, at least call him if you need to go see Dawn."
"A bodyguard, Sandy?" Ryan had said, giving a wry smile. You think I need a bodyguard to see my own mother?
"Ryan, I get that the situation is complicated, but it can't hurt taking some precautions."
Ryan could have argued but the Cohens had more than earned the right to forbid him to see his family. They had never done it, had never even tried to use his lingering feelings of guilt and inadequacy against him.
All they had ever asked of him was that he remained safe; he could give them that.
He wasn't going to put the Cohens through another night at the hospital, waiting for him to wake up.
With fingers he willed to be steady, he punched in the numbers.
"Chris Sanders, private investigations," a man answered.
"Hi. I'm… Hm, Ryan Atwood," Ryan started hesitantly. He didn't have time to start explaining who he was.
"Sandy's kid, right," the man interrupted. "He once said you might call. Need some company to go somewhere?"
Ryan spared a thought to wonder exactly what Sandy had told the guy, and for how long he had waited for that kind of call, then dismissed it.
"Yeah." He quickly gave Chris the address and hung up, heart beating.
Ignoring the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Ryan grabbed his keys and hurried out of his apartment, fighting down the bad taste of deja-vu.
***
The back-up proved to be necessary (and thankfully efficient).
Chris, it turned out, had a commanding presence and wasn't shy about using it.
Dawn's boyfriend, unsurprisingly, was huge-several inches taller than Ryan, and probably ten to fifteen pounds heavier as well.
Why did Dawn keep dragging these giants home anyway?
Did they really make her feel safer? From Dawn's hiccups and tears upon seeing him, he didn't think so.
"Brought your boyfriend with you, punk?" the man asked when he saw Chris stand at Ryan's shoulder.
Ryan rolled his eyes. "Whatever." He looked at Dawn and tried not to show his reaction to seeing her in such a state. She must have been at least twenty pounds underweight, her hair was matted to her face, she was covered in bruises, and, Ryan noticed with a sinking stomach, track marks on her arms. "So, come with us or don't, but hurry up," he said. Maybe anger and coldness would shock her into complying.
She took a hesitant step towards him.
"Who the hell do you think makes the decisions here?" the boyfriend snarled. "A little respect here, son."
Ryan gave him his coldest look. "I'm not your son."
The boyfriend raised his beer bottle as if to throw it at Ryan, who didn't move an inch. Dawn had frozen and was staring at the scene the way she'd look at a tennis match.
Chris took a step forward, said, "Mrs. Atwood, I suggest you follow us quickly."
She swallowed but got moving again, and Ryan heaved a discreet sigh of relief.
At least, she was willing to follow the man giving orders, if she wasn't willing to listen to her own son.
"As for you," Chris added, levelling a glare at the boyfriend, "if you don't let go of that beer bottle, I know some people in the police department, and from your general attitude, I'm sure they'd just love to hold you for the night on general principle." He smiled coldly. "Is that sugar on the table?"
The man grimaced but got the point, and released his hold on the bottle.
Ryan herded Dawn to the door, Chris following them closely. His eyes never left the boyfriend, who was yelling that Dawn wasn't to come back after this.
Ryan didn't see how anyone would want to go back to that man, but he assumed Dawn would see things differently, once she sobered up.
***
He didn't get a chance to see if he had been right or not.
Chris dropped them off at Ryan's place, Ryan told Dawn to take a shower while he was taking a short trip to the nearest grocery for supplies and when he came back, she was gone already.
There was a note on the kitchen counter.
Ryan didn't bother reading it.
Chapter Four