Disclaimer: I don't own any characters, nor did I come up with many of these situations. Josh Schwartz and co. at The OC own everything; I'm merely borrowing!

This prologue is somewhat spoilerish, so if you're spoiler free, you can skip ahead to Chapter One. Just know that the prologue sets up a dialogue for Ryan and Marissa to talk about their relationship from the beginning.

Okay, this is set during the summer between S2 and the upcoming S3. Ryan and Marissa are still together, waiting to see if Trey will wake up from his coma or if the courts decide to charge either one of them with a crime due to Trey's shooting. Naturally, this is taking a toll on both of them, particularly Ryan, who isn't sleeping or eating very much. Marissa is growing increasingly worried about him and decides to surprise him with dinner for two in the pool house this particular evening….

Reading Between The Lines: Prologue

"Hey," Marissa greeted her boyfriend, stepping into the pool house to see him lying in bed reading a book.

"Hey," Ryan smiled, sitting up. Her face was a refreshing sight for his exhausted eyes. "I wasn't expecting to see you tonight."

"Well, I was picking up cheeseburgers and chili fries at the pier when I decided to be especially generous and pick some up for you, too," Marissa said playfully. "I even have some brownies Kaitlyn and I made last night."

Ryan started to protest that he wasn't hungry, but caught the hopefulness, the almost pleading expression in the back of Marissa's eyes and checked himself. He knew this hadn't been done on a whim; Marissa had planned this because she was worried about him. After the hell his impulsive actions with Trey had wreaked on her life, he didn't even deserve her concern. The least he could do was be appreciative of some food. "Sounds great. How about a private picnic out here, just the two of us?" He wasn't particularly in the mood to deal with the rest of the clan.

"You read my mind," Marissa grinned, shutting the door behind her and crawling onto the bed, greeting him with a slow, sweet kiss.

"Mmmm," Ryan murmured against her lips, catching her by the hips and pulling her more firmly against him. "We could skip dinner; this is the best dessert."

Giggling, Marissa shoved him away. "And miss my famous brownies? Not a chance."

"Ugh. Fine," Ryan groaned teasingly, his hand lingering on her waist as he reached for the bag of food with the other. A pang went through his heart; she'd even packed his favorite brand of soda. For a girl often considered to be self-centered, the thoughtful little things she remembered sometimes touched him even as he felt guilty. He should be worrying about her, not the other way around. She shot a person in his defense and she was taking care of him because of it.

"Hey." Marissa reached out to stroke his hair gently. "Where'd you go just then?" Her concern for him ate at her; it kept her up nights as often as the haunting memories of firing the gun at Trey and the fear of what the courts would decide to do about it. She knew he wasn't sleeping or eating; he had dark circles under his eyes and he'd lost about five pounds in the last month. In her darkest moments, she wondered if he was regretting letting her into his life again. Because of her, he'd watched his own brother get shot. Watched HER shoot his brother. As selfish as it was, she was terrified of losing him again. Even worse than that, she'd fear he'd have to pay the price legally for what she'd done. She felt helpless; she had no idea how to make him feel better. Getting him dinner was silly and stupid, but she was so far out of her depth. It was a low blow to emotionally guilt trip him into eating- she knew he'd realize she'd plan this and be unable to turn him down- but if that's what it took to get him to eat, so be it.

"Nowhere," Ryan smiled faintly, leaning his face into her touch and kissing her hand. "Just let my mind drift for a second. Come on, let's eat." They shared dinner in companionable quiet, Ryan eating more to see some of the tension leave Marissa's body than out of any actual desire to do so.

"Mmmm," Marissa said, licking her fingers. "Are there any two more perfectly matched foods than cheeseburgers and chili fries?"

"Well, toss your brownies into the mix and I'd say no," Ryan said playfully, ruffling her hair. "Thank you; this was great."

"Thank YOU," Marissa returned, impulsively deciding to be blunt. "I know you ate just to humor me."

Ryan looked up in surprise for a moment. "Busted," he chuckled wryly at length. Sometimes she startled him with how well she knew him. "I guess I figured the least I could do is eat for you, considering how badly I've already screwed things up."

"How badly YOU'VE screwed things up?" Marissa repeated dumbly, the words not quite sinking in at first.

"Come on, Marissa," Ryan sighed, avoiding her eyes and gathering up the remains of their dinner, getting up to throw them out. "We both know why we're in this. I screwed up. I flew off the handle when I found out….when I found out what Trey did." He still couldn't bring himself to say "tried to rape"; the mere thought of the words were so painful it was difficult to breathe. "I went and confronted him when I shouldn't have. Hell, I rushed him when he was holding a gun. And now you're paying the price for it."

"Ryan." Marissa followed him up and grabbed his arm, forcing him to look at her. "You think all of this is your fault?" She should have known. Of course he didn't blame her. Ryan always internalized things. Everything was HIS fault. "Ryan…" she repeated helplessly. "Come on, this isn't your fault. You aren't responsible for what Trey did. You aren't responsible for what I did."

Ryan frowned at her, faint confusion mingling in with the pain and guilt weighing on him. "What do you mean, what you did? Saved my life? You can't imagine I'd be sorry you didn't let me die."

"I should have told you what happened to begin with," Marissa said softly, letting him go and sinking down into one of his chairs, rubbing her hands over her face. "I never should have let you find out from Seth. Maybe if I'd told you, I could have stopped you somehow."

"Oh, baby," Ryan said softly, touching her hair as he realized what she'd been holding inside herself. He couldn't help smiling wryly at the irony as he knelt in front of her. Naturally, they both blamed themselves and each thought one blamed the other. Maybe they were perfect for each other, after all. "Listen to me," he said firmly, cupping her chin in his hand. "Nothing that happened is your fault. NONE of this is your responsibility. What happened to you happened to YOU. Not me. I didn't have a right to know until you decided to tell me. Besides, it's not like I proved you wrong with how I reacted."

Marissa shook her head tiredly, tears filling her eyes. "I don't know…I just feel like maybe if we learned to talk to each other a little better, things like this wouldn't happen. I mean, we got back together and I think we'd both grown up and learned from our mistakes, but we never really TALKED about it, you know? We never really talked about what went wrong."

Even as the thought of it made Ryan somewhat uncomfortable- he'd never been great at expressing his feelings- he conceded Marissa had a point. "You're right," he admitted. "We should have talked more. I don't know if I made you feel like you couldn't come to me about something like that-"

"No, no," Marissa assured him, taking his hand. "It's not about blame. We've done enough of that for one night. It's just what it is- but it doesn't have to be like that." Suddenly inspired, she gripped his hand a little tighter. "We could change that tonight." At Ryan's bemused expression, she elaborated. "So we've admitted we're not very good at talking things through- so let's talk. Let's go back to the beginning and TALK about our relationship, total honesty. Maybe we could learn from it."

"I don't know, Marissa…" Ryan began warily. The thought of talking about their entire relationship was somewhat daunting and a little frightening. They had a lot of baggage two years down the road.

"Come on," Marissa cajoled, warming to the idea. "Even apart from Trey, I want things to be different this time. I want this relationship to work."

"I do, too!" Ryan insisted a little defensively. It always stung a little that Marissa seemed to think their relationship didn't matter as much to him.

"I know," Marissa said placatingly, rubbing the top of his hand soothingly. "That's why we need to talk about it. We need to make sure neither one of us ever has issues like this again if we can help it."

Ryan had a brief internal war, his natural defenses going against the knowledge that she was right, the desperate need to make sure he didn't lose her one more time. "Alright," he finally relented, pulling her by the hand back to the bed and reclining against the pillows, wrapping her in his arms in an almost protective measure, wary of what the night's discussion would bring back to life. "Let's talk. Where do you want to start?"

Marissa shrugged as if the answer was obvious. "With that first night. The night we met."