A/N: This takes place at the end of 3x23, the prom episode. Obviously inferior to s2's prom episode, but still better than mid s3. Anyway, this was sitting unfinished in my drive so I wanted to finish it. For this series of (long) drabbles I'm sort of out of concrete ideas, though there are always ones floating around my mind. I don't have any other drafts lying around for this series, so I'll leave this as incomplete for if I ever want to revisit it, which is likely.

Thanks to those who have reviewed – I truly appreciate it.

She's just changed into sweatpants and an old tee shirt she's not sure is hers when the doorbell rings downstairs. Waiting four, five seconds and she hears the bell again. Apparently Neil and Julie aren't home, and Marissa lets out a curse as she rushes down the stairs, fully expecting a drunk Summer with a lopsided crown and vomit-stained dress.

"Seth, don't you have a key?" she says, swinging their French door open.

Instead, it's Theresa.

Marissa does a double take. This girl in front of her, sometimes friend, sometimes– enemy, is it?

"Theresa," she starts. "Everything okay?"

The brunette nods. "Yeah, I think so. Seth and Summer are still at the after party, I think he'll bring her home when she stops retching."

After a small, polite laugh, Marissa purses her lips. Seeing Theresa again felt nice but she's never been under the impression that they'll ever be the best of friends.

"Sorry for popping up here. I just wanted to talk-"

For some reason, Marissa isn't up for it. "If you don't mind, I just felt like being alone. Eating ice cream, watching a movie… so I don't think-"

Theresa clears her throat. "I wanted to talk about Ryan."

There's a slight breeze and Theresa holds her wrap tighter around her. Marissa feels like rolling her eyes, as if rehashing their tumultuous relationship is something she wants to do. Thinking about him in the context of more than a friend these days hurts. Her chest aches and there's a feeling inside her that just won't die. It was easier with Kevin, there weren't feelings involved. She may have been angry and embarrassed but she wasn't sad that he'd strayed. If anything, she probably expected it.

"That's about the last thing I feel like doing," she tells the girl in front of her. Her hand is steady on the front door, her tee shirt lightly blowing in the warm breeze. "Especially with you."

"Especially with me?" It's asked with genuine curiosity.

The blonde lets out a chuckle. She'd seen the doe eyes Theresa was eyeing Ryan with all night, the eyes Marissa was no stranger to. It almost felt full circle, Anna and Theresa back in their lives. The same girls to make Summer and Marissa feel insecure and for good reason. The symmetry, she thinks, is impeccable.

Theresa tries a different tactic, "Can you tell me what happened with Trey?"

This gets Marissa's attention. She's been doing everything possible the last few months to forget Trey.

"I figured you knew," she responds, crossing her arms, trying not to let her vulnerability show. She's always felt inferior to this girl for some reason.

"I do, at least part of it. My mom read about the shooting in the paper. But Ryan doesn't want to say much about it."

"Yeah, that's Ryan for you."

Theresa nods. "Yeah, it is."

Her arms still crossed, Marissa lets out a sigh. "What's there to know?"

"I guess… the aftermath of it all. Ryan says he's in Vegas now."

Marissa rolls the information around in her mind. He hadn't told her that at all. Were they in contact? How long did Ryan know? She knows he went to the bus stop and didn't get to say goodbye, but was there more?

"Marissa?"

"Huh?"

"You kind of went away for a while there."

"Right, sorry."

She looks Theresa up and down and even though there's something inside her that doesn't want Theresa in her new home, something about this girl from Ryan's past viewing her as a privileged princess, she can't help but invite her in. "Come on, sitting on the steps wouldn't be good for your dress."

They walk into the living room and Marissa takes a place at the end of the leather couch. She tries not to think of the times she curled up to Ryan on this very couch for movie nights with Summer and Seth.

She tells Theresa about the shooting, glosses over the catalyst for the shooting, subconsciously moving a hand over the spot where her invisible scar lies, soft and supple months after fading. She briefly describes the summer after it, the questioning from the authorities, the back and forth. She can't go into detail, there are memories she saves for herself and maybe Summer or Ryan once upon a time when she felt safe and open. But times have changed, and there's another tragedy occupying her mind these days. She's only just now beginning to stop blaming herself for Johnny.

Theresa listens with concern and acknowledgment. She frowns at the right times and only interjects to say I'm so sorry, Marissa every few minutes.

"So yeah, that's in the past now," the blonde finishes with a breath, fiddling with a piece of chipped polish from her nail. There's something relieving about telling someone else, expressing the events that have clouded her mind the past few months. Someone outside the core people who were part of it. Of course, she remembers, she told Johnny too.

There's silence for at least 30 seconds, that Marissa does know. But it feels longer than that, feels like minutes rather than half of one.

"That's obviously not true," Theresa says, refolding her legs. It's so obvious to her that she almost chuckles.

Marissa looks up. "It is."

There's a purse of Theresa's lips and Marissa's grateful she doesn't delve further into it.

Before she realizes what she's doing, Marissa says softly, "He blames me."

"Blames you for what?" Theresa asks.

Now Marissa remembers why they were friendly long ago. She could talk to Theresa, could get a feeler for Ryan's past and who he was. Theresa's not afraid to speak her mind, not afraid to press Ryan's buttons, and she admires that.

"Trey's gone. I'm why he's gone."

As if it weren't a thought she's had for nearly a year. Nearly every time she looked at Ryan it felt like there was an uncrossable bridge between them. Eventually that bridge manifested itself into Johnny.

Theresa touches the middle part of the couch, an area of fabric between them. It's a sign of solidarity and compassion. "Marissa, that's not true."

She lets out a sad chuckle. Bringing all this up again dredges up the feelings she's been trying so hard to suppress. Summer seemed to take Ryan's side post-breakup and Seth's attention couldn't focus on her problems for more than five minutes. Marissa brings her legs to her chest and lets herself feel the emotions she's been pushing away the past few months. Of course it's true that Ryan blames her, even if it is deep down. "It is, but that's okay. We're friends now, sort of."

It's Theresa's time to laugh. "Right."

"We are," the blonde replies defensively. She can't let herself feel more for him. He hurt her and she hurt him and that's how their story ends.

Theresa gives her a knowing look she can't quite understand. Having this girl back in town brings up memories of two years ago, of a summer spent with only shoplifted liquor and darkness. Sometimes it was easy to forget about Theresa, forget that she had Ryan first in all the ways Marissa wished she had instead.

"I saw the way he looked at you," the brunette says wistfully. "At the dance."

Marissa bristles. "Yeah, well I saw the way you looked at him."

Their eyes meet for a brief second and Theresa looks away. "I'm always gonna love him, but..." She drifts off in a way that Marissa understands.

The blonde looks away too, toward the unnecessary fireplace and its flames. As if it ever gets cold in Southern California. She feels transported to two years ago – she'll have to point out the full circle thing to Summer tomorrow.

"Maybe you should go for it," Marissa says. It sounds hollow. She doesn't mean it, not in the slightest, but the words come out anyway.

There's always been something in the back of her head telling her that Theresa would never be completely out of the picture. Maybe Ryan belongs with his lifelong friend, the girl he took to dances and shares a long history with.

The look on Theresa's face is humorous. She lets out an embarrassed smile. "No matter how I feel for him, he feels more for you. I saw it tonight."

Theresa won't tell her about the almost-kiss toward the end of the after-party, won't tell her that she and Ryan were approaching dangerous and reckless territory. Because that's what they've always done.

She saw their bleak future the summer he lived with her in Chino, disinterestedly going to doctor's appointments and grimacing at the lunches she packed for him.

"I'm familiar," she admits to Marissa, whose ears perk up when she breaks the silence. "That's what I am to him. But you, he can't even describe what you are."

Like he tried, Marissa says to herself.

She brings her legs to her chest and tells herself that she can't be sucked into this again. Losing Johnny and then Ryan in succession was too much to take. It gave her too much time to think, to realize certain things about the choices she made. Shaking her head, she tries to push the thoughts away again, and hates that she wants to raid Neil's liquor cabinet.

"He's stubborn," Theresa continues. "He doesn't believe he deserves to be happy. Some sort of self-inflicted punishment, I think."

Marissa gives her a stare. Is she trying to give Marissa pointers? She doesn't understand where this conversation is going, and is starting to feel the effects of the vodka from earlier.

"But you- he trusts you in a way that I'll never be able to touch. I used to hate that."

"I felt the same way about you," the blonde admits, biting her lip and looking at the other girl cautiously. "But I don't think you're right about me. And anyway, we've hurt each other-"

"I know. At least- I can see it. But he needs you."

Theresa gets up to leave and they exchange silent glances as they walk toward the door, Marissa mulling over the words in her mind. She decides to give the picture upstairs that Summer keeps on her bedside table another glance, the one of the four of them in Tijuana.

Theresa's about to walk away when Marissa calls out to her.

"Why did you lie to him? About the baby?"

It's been running through her head ever since she heard the news. Despite Volchok and prom occupying her thoughts, that slithered its way into the depths of her mind late at night.

The brunette turns toward her with a smile that doesn't touch her eyes, but instead makes her look sad but accepting. "He was miserable. And he belongs here. With the Cohens, and," she stops for a second, looking Marissa in the eye. This girl is so many things she's not, and the tides turned the second Ryan left Chino for a new life in Newport. She knows Ryan better than she knows herself, but the girl standing across from her in sweatpants and a messy ponytail knows him in ways that Theresa never will. Never could, once he came to this town.

"And you. With you."

.