The Anchor l The O.C.

The Debut

Disclaimer: I do not own The O.C. or any of its characters. I only own Sam and any other OCs. Anything else that you may recognize belongs to FOX, Warner Brothers, & Josh Schwartz.

Sam's POV

I was in the living room with Ryan and Seth, playing some video games. Ryan had managed to get better over the weekend of the three of us playing these. Ryan then somehow managed to beat both Seth and me at the level we had been playing; I was surprised.

"So the pupil has become the master." Seth comments as he turned to look at Ryan, smugly.

"I have taught you well." I added.

We looked up and watched as Sandy and Kirsten walked in, dressed nicely. They had gone out earlier.

"Hey guys." Sandy greets.

"Hi." Ryan and I both replied in unison.

"Who died?" Seth questions after seeing how his parents were dressed. I shoved him.

"Seth, we need to talk to Ryan and Sam privately." Kirsten states.

"If this is about the rug, Ryan and Sam had nothing to do with it." Seth then says, but I had a feeling it had to do with how they were dressed; I doubt it's about the rug.

"What about the rug?" Kirsten asked, looking down at the rug they were standing on.

"I'm gonna go now." Seth says before quickly leaving the room.

Ryan and I set our controllers down on the coffee table as Sandy and Kirsten sat on the opposite sides of the two of us. Ryan wrapped an arm around my shoulder. I felt sort of nervous.

"So, Kirsten and I went to child services this morning. And we told them that, uh, that we want you both to stay with us." Sandy started off by saying. Well now, I knew there had to be something. I hope that us staying here is an option because I do not want to go into foster care.

"Let me guess. There's a catch." I guessed and they nodded.

"Because you and Ryan are minors, the only way they'll allow that to happen is if we assume all legal responsibility for the two of you." Sandy finished explaining.

I should have known something like this happening for Ryan and I would be too good to be true. We can't ask them to do that. I doubt they'd even want to.

"We can't ask you guys to do that." Ryan said and I nodded, trying to hide how much I didn't want to say it.

"You guys don't have to. We're asking." Sandy smiled and we looked between them, sort of confused.

"We've all talked about it." Kirsten chimes in. "We want to be your legal guardians and we want you two to be part of the family, if you guys want to be."

This really seemed too good to be true. Stuff like this doesn't just happen to kids like Ryan and me; it seems surreal.

"What if it doesn't work out?" Ryan asks after glancing at me.

"What do you mean?" Kirsten asked, confused.

"What if something happens?" Ryan starts off by saying.

"What if we mess up…and you guys change your minds?" I asked, sort of afraid of the answer. It could happen. It wouldn't be the first time we got kicked out.

"Like what? You steal a car, burn down a house, beat up the captains of the Water Polo team?" Sandy asks and I smiled a bit after they did; I guess there wasn't much more we could do at this point. "That ship has sailed."