Kirsten x Sandy

Kirsten x Sandy is the het ship between Kirsten Nichol and Sandy Cohen from The O.C. fandom.

Canon
Sandy and Kirsten met in college when he was on a political campaign; he tried to give Kirsten a flyer, but she refused it and so he proposed that she take the pin which she accepted as trendy. Sandy then proposed to offer her a coffee and she feeling intrigued by his personality, accepted.

Despite both having come back from important stories, Kirsten and Sandy end up falling in love and their story will lead to marriage. Years later Sandy will say that the year he met Kirsten was the best of his life.

Sandy will never get along very well with Kirsten's father, Caleb, and the same can be said of Kirsten and Sandy's mother, Sophie. This will mainly depend on the fact that the two spouses come from very different families (Kirsten was born into a rich family and is a Christian, while Sandy is Jewish and comes from a poor family).

At some point the couple will have a son Seth, and when Kirsten's mother falls ill with cancer, the family will move from Berkley to Orange County (where Kirsten's family lives) to be close to her. When Rose Nichol dies, the three will remain to live in Newport, whose bigoted and conceited society will not suit Sandy's personality.

However, Kirsten has landed an important role in her father's company the Newport Group and so the family remains to live in Orange County.

Ryan's arrival
Sandy becomes a public defense attorney and one of his clients is a boy named Ryan Atwood who tried to steal a car with his older brother Trey. Sandy manages to get him released, but realizing that Ryan's mother and her partner are not in the least able to take care of him, she gives him his business card, telling him to call him in case of need.

The need comes almost immediately: Dawn Atwood's partner throws Ryan out of the house without her objecting too much and unable to find accommodation, the boy can do nothing but ask Sandy for help who decides to host him in her house for on the weekend, without asking Kirsten if she agrees. Seth is a lonely and introverted guy, but he and Ryan make friends almost immediately.

Kirsten is far from happy to have Ryan host, but she is convinced almost immediately. Unlike his wife, Sandy thinks it's okay for Seth to be with Ryan, but when his wife tells him to take him home, he agrees. However, the two find the house deserted and so Sandy decides to keep Ryan at home for a while longer. Sandy knows he can't help but put Ryan in foster care, but that it's pretty hard for anyone to choose to adopt a teenager and Kirsten begins to empathize with the boy.

Seth tries to help Ryan not end up in foster care by hiding him in an empty house owned by Caleb, but due to the attraction between Ryan and Marissa, the latter's boyfriend, Luke and his friends attack Ryan and due to the fight the two unintentionally trigger a fire. Ryan is back in jail and Kirsten is persuaded by Seth to visit him.

An inmate makes a vulgar comment about Kirsten and when Ryan tells him to stop it, a fight breaks out. Shocked by the environment in which the boy has ended up (who grew up in a difficult situation, but he is not a criminal) Kirsten is unable to abandon him and takes him back to her house.

This time it's Sandy who doesn't like it, telling his wife that they can't keep making fun of that poor boy by pulling him out of jail to get him adopted by giving him hope and then taking it away. Kirsten retorts that she doesn't want to adopt Ryan, but seek his mother. Sandy retorts that Ryan doesn't want to look for her, but his wife still thinks it's the right thing to do. When he finds out that his wife has lent a hundred thousand dollars to Jimmy Cooper her ex without telling him anything, he gets angry not for the money, but for jealousy.

Kirsten: Ryan's gonna stay with us now.

Seth: ''That's awesome. I mean that's... that's awesome, right? Let's go talk about stuff. Come on.''

Ryan: I'll unpack later.

Sandy: Well, there's a no-return policy now, you know that.

Kirsten: ''I love you. You know that? Are we okay?''

Sandy: Yeah.

Kirsten: ''Good. Beacause we just got in way over our heads.''

- Kirsten and Sandy decide to adopt Ryan. Eventually Sandy tracks down Dawn Atwood, who broke up with the man she was with, but very soon after, she turns out to be totally unreliable and addicted to alcohol and eventually realizes she herself is unable to look after her child, so she decides to leave, leaving his son with the Cohens. At that point Kirsten is unable to abandon Ryan to his fate and she decides to adopt him, finding Sandy's immediate consent.

Sandy discovers that Jimmy is under investigation for scam and immediately decides to talk to his wife, revealing that her ex has drawn money from his clients' accounts (he is a financial advisor) to cover his debts. Kirsten is shocked by this and convinces her husband not to tell anyone what he has discovered until he has talked to Jimmy.

Kirsten is upset and convinces her husband not to tell anyone what he found out until he talks to Jimmy and after doing so she asks Sandy to defend him. Sandy, however, does not want to know, and a nasty altercation ensues. That evening Sandy just because of Jimmy doesn't want to go to the debutante ball, but he eventually changes his mind and joins Kirsten. When Jimmy is attacked by one of his clients, Sandy defends him and his wife appreciates him. Caleb visits the family and berates his daughter for adopting Ryan without consulting him and says he wants to reduce her responsibilities at work (a clear punishment). Sandy is silent, but taking advantage of a moment when he and his wife are alone, he tries to console her and proposes to resign and go back to live in Berkley. Kirsten refuses, however.

"''My dad isn't the reason we stayed here. We are. We chose this. If you're telling me that all this time you've been unhappy, that this isn't what you want, then this much a bigger conversation". - Kirsten to Sandy.''

Sandy later berates her father-in-law for treating her daughter, but the blonde doesn't like it and tries in vain to mediate between her father and her husband. Sandy later apologizes to his wife, but she points out that they didn't stay in Newport to please her father, but because they decided it and that if it made Sandy unhappy they will have to talk about it. Sandy later arrives to give Caleb advice on how to treat her daughter, all in order to see her happy. Later Sandy watches father and daughter make peace from a distance.

Fanon
is a popular ship in The O.C. Despite being a teen drama and their characters being always seen as adults (except in a flashback), being the only adult couple who remain together throughout the series has been something fans of the ship enjoy. According to them, this shows that they have a marriage that always remains strong, despite the shocks. There are fanfics and videos dedicated to this ship. And on AO3, the ship currently has over 60 works.

Fandom
FAN FICTION
 * Kirsten/Sandy on Fanfiction.net
 * Kirsten/Sandy on Fanfiction.net