Title: Broken Beauty
Summary: When you countlessly drop fragile things they're bound to break. Marissa was no different. Seth on Marissa's death
Disclaimer: I don't own The OC, Josh Schwartz owns it. Not me.
Pairings: Seth/Marissa friendship. slight Summer/Seth

Broken Beauty

It was an awkward hug. Seth hugged Marissa, and whispered in her ear, "You're not so bad Cooper."

She looked back at him, smiling, and replyed, "You're a big dork, but I guess your not too bad yourself Cohen."

Seth laughed slightly, rolled his eyes, and pulled out of the hug. Out of all The Fab 4, he was the least close to Marissa. The two both knew how awkward their friendship was, and both figured that if Ryan and Summer didn't exist the two would never even talk.

What was more odd was that you'd expect Ryan and Summer's friendship to be just as cold and awkward as Seth and Marissa's, but it wasn't. Ryan and Summer genually got along. Even when Summer and Seth weren't together or Marissa and Ryan weren't together, Summer and Ryan still managed to get along, talk, and be friendly. Given the same situation Marissa and Seth wouldn't say a word.

He shook his thoughts away for a moment, and watched as Marissa left with Ryan. Summer started crying, and waving. Seth made his way over to her, and held her in his arms.

Summer lay on his bed. They had just gotten done having magnificient sex, the best since the wheelbarrel. She lay on his chest, and he gently kissed her forehead. She giggled, "Hey Cohen, can you go get me something to eat?"

He groaned, "Fine, but only because I love you."

She got off of his chest, and kissed him, "Thank you I love you too."

He laughed, "Yeah, yeah." He then got out out of his bed, and put on his bathrobe, and headed down the stairs. Suddenly he heard his mother shriek. The sound pierced his ears, and he quickly ran down the steps, and towards the kitchen.

When he reached the kitchen he looked to see his mother shaking and crying in his father's arms. He had never seen his mother like this, not once. She usually was cold, and drank her problems away.

Seth watched as his mother moaned, "Not Ryan!"

What about Ryan?

"Kirsten it's going to be okay, it's not certain if it's Ryan. But sweetheart let's be honest here, in these accidents the driver is usually is the one." His father soothed.

The driver's usually the what?

"He can't be, Sandy! He can't, he can't! I didn't tell him I loved him!" His mother screamed.

His father put a hand over his mother, "Kirsten, he knew."

"Oh wake up Sandy! I've been horrible to Ryan. I wouldn't let him in my house and then those things I said to him during the intervention..." His mother moaned, "How could he possibly know?"

Seth's father said, "He did Kirsten. He did! And there's always the chance that it's not him..."

He heard his mother say softly, "I hope it's Marissa."

His father shook his head, "No you don't. You don't mean that."

She cried, "Yes I do. It's either her or Ryan, and I hope Ryan is the lucky one, which means I hope Marissa is the one who you know."

His father examined Kirsten, "Not necesarily."

"Yes, necessarily Sandy. As Ryan's mother, I hope Marissa died."

Seth's jaw dropped. His mother hoped Marissa was dead, and not Ryan. What was going on?

Seth walked away and back upstairs, not the least bit concerned about the rampage Summer would go on when he returned without the food.

His cellphone rang. Seth was arguing with Summer telling her that he did not want to go and buy food, because he wasn't hungry. In reality he was starved, but wasn't going to leave till he found out what was going on with Ryan and Marissa. He picked up his cellphone, "Hello."

"Hey son." His father said gravely. He could tell his father was upset with what had happened.

"Dad, what's going on?" Seth asked his father.

Sandy Cohen paused not knowing what way to explain it to his son, "Seth, Ryan and Marissa were involved in a car accident. There was one fatality..."

Seth asked the question he was dreading most, "Who's dead?"

This got Summer's attention and he heard her ask, "Cohen what's going on who's dead?"

Seth ignored her, and waited for his father to answer.

"Ryan's alive." His father said slowly.

This meant that the girl he'd grown up living next door to was...dead.

Seth had been the one to tell Summer. She hadn't believed him at first, and had hit him, for playing such a cruel joke. When she finally believed him, she broke down in a similar way to Kirsten, and cried into Seth.

Yet despite the fact that her best friend was dead she still insisted on going to the hospital to be with Ryan. Seth had to admire her for that, if it had been Ryan who died, well Seth wasn't sure he could bring himself to go to the hospital to be with Marissa, the girl who had survived instead of Ryan.

So here they were. Seth, Summer, and Sandy waiting for news on Ryan. Kirsten was inside the hospital room with him, Seth thought it odd that his mom was with Ryan considering he'd always thought Ryan bonded more with Sandy.

"Dad, why is mom in there instead of you?" Seth asked.

Sandy shrugged, "She refused to leave his side."

That was odd. He had never pinned his mom that way. He had always thought of his mother as someone who'd wait in the waiting room. Seth sighed, and held Summer's hand as she cried.

A police officer came out. Seth didn't know his name, but he was sure they'd met. There were many times when he witnessed someone being arrested, even himself on one occasion. He was sure he'd seen the whole police squad at some point.

"Sandy, Julie Cooper won't identify the body. She does not want to see her daughter like this, she said perhaps you could." The police officer said.

Seth watched his dad nod, "I understand. I can do it."

"Okay," The police officer said, "We'll set up the body and paperwork."

Mr. Cohen nodded, and the police officer was off to set up the body.

The three were again left alone to their thoughts. When suddenly Seth's mother came out yelling, "Sandy come here quick."

Sandy Cohen ran faster than Seth had ever seen hm run. If the situation hadn't been so tragic, he would have made a joke to Summer about his father running.

In his minds he thought of jokes, why did Sandy Cohen run across the room? To get away from Greased Lightning! Isyour Cohen running? You better go catch it...damn, his jokes sucked.

He was taken out of his fantasy world of jokes when the police officer who had apparently reappeared asked, "Where's Sandy?"

"With his son." Seth replied somewhat easily.

The police offer shrugged, "Can you please get him for me?"

Seth sighed, "I think it's important he's with his son. Is there anyway I could do it instead?"

Summer gasped, and mouthed,"Cohen that's a big deal you want to identify Coop's body?"

Seth shrugged, and waited for the police officer to say something.

The police officer glared at him as if he had made some kind of bad joke, "You understand that this isn't a joke."

"No I didn't, I thought it was some kind of act out of Seinfeld." Seth bit sarcastically, and then said seriously "Yes, I understand it's not a joke."

"Are you of legal age?" The police officer asked.

Seth nodded, "Yeah."

The police officer examined Seth as if to see if he was serious or not. He finally said, "Okay come with me."

It had taken fifteen minutes to get to the body examination building. Seth felt the eerinesss of the building the second he stepped inside. This was where they kept the dead bodies, to perform autopsies and identify a body. Marissa Cooper's dead body was in here. He was going to see Marissa's dead body.

The officer led him through rooms, until they finally entered a small room with a window outside. The first thing he noticed was a blanket on top of a very tall object. Then it hit him, that blanket was covering Marissa.

"You ready?" The officer asked him. The officer seemed apologetic that Seth would have to go through this. He obviously knew it was a hard job. He obviously figured Seth couldn't handle it...

"As I'll ever be." Seth said quietly. The cop nodded, and gently picked up the blanket. Seth gasped at what he saw.

This person was not Marissa. She wasn't even though it looked like Marissa, it couldn't be. The girl had scars all around her face. There was dried blood all over her body. Her shirt had a black stain on it, probably from a fire of some sort. Her once perfect blond hair, had red tinges of blood from a head injury. This was not the girl who had made guys heart drop. This was not the girl who could make anyone smile at the look of her. This was not Seth Cohen's next door neighbor, she would never be here like this.

This girl was however the girl who attracted all the bad guys. This girl was the one who had found herself in an intoxicating love affair with Kevin Volchok. This was the girl who drank her problems away. This was the girl who could never quite make up her mind about anything. This was the girl who would sleep around to avoid lonliness. That girl was expected to wind up dead before she turned twenty.

But the Marissa he grew up with had changed into the second girl, and before she could change back...she was dead.

He whispered, "Yeah that's her."

The next morning he sat at his computer burning a CD, he had just found some great Placebo songs. He was so excited he wanted to call someone about this new exciting moment in his life.

The person he thought of was Marissa. She had liked his music after all, and would understand the significance of his recent discovery. He picked up his cellphone to call her.

And then it hit him Marissa was dead, and not able to discuss music.

He felt a slight pang in his stomach. Was it possible that he missed Cooper?

He pushed the thought out of his mind. For once he needed to forget about his issues, and be strong for Ryan and Summer. He was now all they had.

It was Maissa's funeral, Summer was in the middle of her eulogy, "...Marissa was an amazing friend, she was always there for me when I needed her the most. Even though she'd seen her dark times..."

Summer stopped, and started crying. Seth knew she was referring to Volchock, the guy who had driven Marissa off the road. Seth sighed a bit. He wanted to go up to the podiumn, and hug his girlfriend. Hold her in his arms, and whisper sweet lies about how everything was going to be okay. They both knew how nothing was going to be okay.

Seth watched as his girlfriend whispered into the microphone, "I'm sorry, I can't do this."

With that Summer ran as fast as her little legs could carry her, and Seth chased after her. When he finally caught up with her he grabbed her and hugged her. Summer surrendered herself into the hug. He whispered into her ear, "You have to go back in there."

Summer shook her head, "No I don't."

"Why not?" Seth asked his girlfriend.

"I don't want to deal with it yet." Summer told him quietly.

Seth nodded, "It's not something that gives you that choice, you have to deal with it."

Summer pulled away from it and shouted, "Cohen she's dead! My best friend is dead, don't you dare tell me that I have to deal with it yet Summer."

"Marissa would want you to deal with it." Seth insisted, he figured it was true. Marissa wouldn't want them all here forestalling the mourning process, she wouldn't want her friends to be sad.

Summer looked at him and hit him, "You don't know crap about what Marissa would want Cohen! You're probably glad she's dead! ow that she's out of the way you'll have Chino and my full attention."

Seth felt like he had just been slapped. Well technically he had, but he felt her words had left more of a sting then her hit. He whispered to her, "You know that's not true."

Summer whimpered, "I wish I did."

With that Summer walked away, and headed towards her car.

It had been a month since Marissa had died. Ryan had moved out of Newport, and back to some grungy neighborhood. Summer was still refusing to accept that her best friend was dead, and Seth was still being told by Summer and Ryan that he didn't miss Marissa, that he was in fact happy she was dead.

Seth didn't get angry, he knew that they were both devastated by Marissa's death. He knew he was the easy target, because him and Marissa hadn't been close. He knew that his friendship with Marissa was cold, he knew that they hadn't had a real relationship. He knew he probably the least affected of the 'Core Four' by Marissa's death...

But that didn't mean he wasn't affected by Marissa's death. He missed having someone to talk about music with. He missed exchanging CDS with Marissa after an extremely tense argument over who was better, Death Cab or The Sex Pistols. He missed her, and he didn't wish her dead but there was one thing that could be taken as slightly negative. He wasn't surprised by her death. Well, he wasn't surprised by the fact it had happened. He was surprised by the way it had happened, but the idea of her dying wasn't shocking to him. She had been headed that way for three years, she had went through every other tragedy in the world, and he figured soon enough the only one left was death. He hated the fact that he was right.

He clicked on the computer, and opened I-Tunes, he needed some music. He needed some distraction from his thoughts. He was shocked to find a playlist that said Marissa's name on it. He clicked open, and looked at the list of songs. It was mainly Death Cab and The Sex Pistols, with a tad bit of Rooney and The Killers. He figured out instantly that this was the CD he meant to give Marissa for graduation, but had never gotten around to it. For some reason he took out a blank CD, and started burning the CD.

The car drove him to the graveyard. He wanted to drive and get away from his thoughts,but he had bought Marissa's CD along for the ride. He didn't know why he was doing this or what exactly he was doing. He was at a cemetery in the pooring rain. He got out of the care feeling the rain crash on top of him, and worked himself to the new burial site that he knew was Marissa's.

The site was so fresh that there wasn't a tombstone up. He sighed, and started talking, he didn't know why he was talking, MArissa obviously couldn't hear him or talk back, but that had never really bothered Seth before.

"So have you met Jimi Hendrix yet? How about John Ritter? Janis Joplin? I know who you've met, you have met Jesus haven't you...?" Seth asked.

There was no reply, but that wasn't especially be surprising.

"Summer and Ryan really miss you, neither wants to deal with your death." Seth told the emptiness.

The rain stared pouring down harder.

"They keep saying I'm glad you're dead, I'm not." Seth said and laughed, "God, I have reached a new level of crazy, I'm talking to a dead girl."

He bent down and gently placed a CD on the muddy dirt, it was wrapped in a cover that said 'Marissa' .

"Okay so I forgot to give you my graduation gift. It's a CD, I know you can't hear it but I wanted you to get it." He stood back up again and whispered, "I miss you."

He then said, "You know what'd be so cliche? If the sun came out right at this very second."

The sun suddenly appeared, and the rain slowed down.

Seth laughed, "You always were a fan of the cliche."

And with that he walked away from Marissa's burial site, and he could have sworn the slightest tear appeared.

AN: I know parts were a bit unbelievable, but what did you think overall?