Title: She.
Rating: G
Summary/AN: Short snippet of Seth after Marissa dies. The Marissa/Seth friendship was so underdeveloped and rarely explored, which annoys me a little. You don't spend three years with someone in your group of 4 close friends and not grow close to them. I guess everyone imagines how Summer and Ryan reacted after, but I always tend to think about Seth. And one of my very favorite things to do in fanfiction is to just invent small snipets of life for characters that we didn't ever get to see. You know, they had to have normal teenage down time between all the drama. I love to invent those moments for characters from anything. I actually have a couple more after Marissa's death one shot ideas that I will probably get up here soon.
Marissa Cooper is supposed to be on an airplane, off to see her dad. Marissa is supposed to be happy; finally happy and not sad, angry, depressed, drunk or dead. But she is, she's dead.
She's in his bedroom, all over the place.
She's in his music. Her handwriting is scrawled across the burnt CD spinning in his stereo, 'Gatsby's American Dream' spelled out in her loopy cursive with a smiley face drawn out quickly beside it. He'd traded her for an old 'Saves the Day' record. They liked the same music; she's in his Ipod too. "Marissa I'm raiding your itunes while you and Summer change your clothes for the 25th time." That had only been months ago. She'd been alive then, muttering a quick "whatever" as she contemplated a green shirt with the khaki shorts in the mirror beside his girlfriend.
She's in his computer. He clicks open the photo folder and can't scrawl without her face popping up every several seconds. Her and Summer at the diner, French fries stuck up in their gums walrus style. Ryan pushing her into the pool in the backyard. Her pointing and pouting at her scraped knee after she'd insisted on taking a try at his skateboard. One on the beach of himself winking exaggeratedly into the camera with one arm slung over Summer's shoulder and the other over hers. The four of them, years ago, on the couch in the living room making faces. The graduation pictures, all of them together and in various poses. He'd just uploaded them last night, she'd been alive and breathing and happy last night.
Her screen name stays un-highlighted on his buddy list and she's never going to IM him about English homework or wanting to know if the four of them are going to some lame beach party ever again.
She's in his bookshelf. She was always borrowing them, sneaking Klosterman and Vonnegut into her bag whenever she happened to be in his room and even when he caught her he still let her take them. "Not one dog-eared page Cooper, or the Seth Cohen library closes for good." She always returned them with folded pages and improvised bookmarks forgotten inside; he never kept good on his promise to cut her off. There's a shopping receipt from the South Coast Mall still tucked into the back cover of 'Killing Yourself to Live'; Fifty-five dollars at Journeys for a pair of slip on Keds on April 3rd. She was alive on April 3rd, buying sneakers at the mall and now she's dead.
She's in his yearbook. Marissa Cooper: social chair, honor roll. He has more signatures then he expected. There are a few he hasn't read yet that should probably say something along the lines of "sorry for socially ostracizing you for four years. KIT!" Hers is one of the very few long, personal inscriptions.
Seth,
I'm not writing good-bye because I know I'll be seeing plenty of you for the rest of my life. With you and Summer destined for Kirsten and Sandy bliss I know that you'll always be in my life. But I wanna say thanks for being such a good friend even when I haven't always deserved it. Isn't it kinda funny that we lived next door to each other for so long and didn't really become friends until I moved? Ok, maybe it's not funny. I'm sorry I never talked to you when were little. But really Seth Cohen, you've turned out to be one of my best friends. Weird, huh? ) No trip to the dinner or Friday night spent avoiding everyone besides the "core four" at one of Holly's parties was complete without your commentary on the Harbor student body. Take care of Summer. And take care of Ryan. They both need you. Oh and sorry I'm totally copying your whole 'see the world by sailing' thing, I'll take lots of pictures!
Always,
Marissa "Cosmo Girl" Cooper
He doesn't realize he's crying until a tear hits the inks and it smudges slightly. The four of them were supposed to be superheroes. Marissa had been such a tragic hero; the kind with a broken smile that could change someone's world but never really fit into it. Regardless, super heroes weren't supposed to die. But she did, she died. And nothing was ever going to be the same again.