DISCLAIMER: Everything's been derived from a "little" show we all love, called "The OC". The premise of what's written below was concocted by my imagination, so if anything down below is the same (names etc. etc.), it was unintended and purely coincidental. If you have a problem, just tell me and I'd be glad to oblige…I'm a loving pacifist, I can't help it :-). Hmmm…what else is there to say? Oh yeah. I own nothing. I love furry bears. Neon green is the new orange? Go Clippers?!

CHAPTER 2 – Luke's Big Gay Dad?

Well that was one hell of a dream, Seth thought as he woke up. Far too real. God if I open my eyes, that means I'm gonna have to get up and take the trash out…it's Tuesday.

—My ass itches. It's going to be one of those days……Did I over sleep? Dammit, that means I didn't tape "Everwood" for Summer. She's gonna open a can of whoop-ass. Hmmm…maybe that'll help my itchy ass? My eyes are too comfortable to open them. Think of happy thoughts, think of happy thoughts…………………PUDDING. SUMMER and PUDDING. SUMMER rolling around in PUDDING…………CAPTAIN OATS FLYING………CAPTAIN OATS FLYING OVER BUCKET OF PUDDING WITH SUMMER ROLLING AROUND IT.

"Seth Cohen?" a man's voice inquired.

That's not Summer…oh my god, maybe I got so plastered and maybe I went to some prison and picked up some guy and had some really minty moment with him…we're all entitled to one really really really bad lapse in judgement…never did explore in college…oh my god…no, I'm incapable of that…maybe chest-shaving Luke, as he does have a big gay dad as his role model…but not Seth Cohen…oh no no no…not me.

Chalk full of quiet now. Just open your eyes so you can figure out who that man is and why the voice is soothingly UNfamiliar.

Seth opened his left eye to peak and then jumped up startled. "Um…hi," Seth greeted, attempting to be calm. "And if you don't mind my asking…who the hell are you? And why are you in my hou—" Seth stopped before he could say house. He got up out of the bed. It was not his home.

The short man smiled, "Actually, you're in my house."

Seth bounced up at this. He looked around in what looked like a hospital room. All the materials that belonged in a hospital were situated where they would be situated—except that the building was far too quiet to be a hospital. "Are you…a doctor?"

The short man who wore a Clippers jersey with a pair of tight jeans and 90's style basketball sneakers laughed. "Call me doctor, call me grandpa, whatever soothes your desires."

Seth felt his body. Everything seemed fine. "So was I…"

"Injured?" the man responded.

"Yeah…"

"You could say that, but you're healed now."

"Does my wife know I'm here? My family?"

The man continued to smile. Seth was starting to get irritated with the man's constant smile. "The name's Caulfield…George Caulfield," he said as he stuck out his hand. Seth shook it. "Come on, let's walk…it's better to explain things while doing something physical." Physical? I am not Luke's big gay dad. I am not Luke's big gay dad. Seth thought. "You're far from being Luke's big gay dad. You sneaky heterosexual fox you," the man responded with a chuckle.

Seth stopped, wondered how the man knew what he thought, shrugged it off and then continued. He didn't care, he was anxious to find his wife. "What kind of a hospital is this?"

"This is St. Jude's hospital in Malibu. You were airlifted here a couple of days ago."

"Why is it so empty?" Seth questioned. The front desk and lobbies were empty. The quaint hospital was far too quaint. "Jesus, who died?" Seth commented playfully on the desolate building. Finally Seth saw two people coming from downstairs. It was another patient and another person. Caulfield waved at the other person walking with the patient.

Caulfield, a short man who looked like he was in his forties, smiled at Seth again. "No, I don't have a smiling issue," Caulfield answered, reading Seth's head. "Some people think I do, but I don't."

"Fantastic," Seth replied, ready to leave the weird man. He then snapped his two fingers together. "Listen, do you know where my wife is?"

"She's here, but you won't see her."

"Why can't I see her?"

Caulfield stopped. His smile had stopped. He looked like he had something grave he wanted to explain to Seth.

Seth looked at him and spoke slowly and calmly, "Mr. Caulfield, sir, I would like to see my wife, her name is Summer Cohen. Maybe she's listed under Summer Roberts-Cohen? She kept her last name for legal documents and hyphenated it with mine as an homage to her dad, being the only child that could bear the Roberts' name, since she had no brothers or sisters. You look like an extremely helpful man, very Mr. Rogers-like in a 90's outdated thuggish way, so now if you can just turn me to the proper direction, I'll walk myself there."

"I was never good at this stuff, never figured out why he put me in this job," Caulfield said. Although it seemed like he was saying it to himself more so than he was saying it to Seth. Caulfield looked up and closed his eyes, and shook all of his body for a few seconds. "She's now in the room you woke up in."

Seth rushed back to the room with a smile in his face expecting to see her there, standing as beautifully as he remembered her when she left…sporting her beautiful mischievous smile…but she wasn't there. Seth turned around and found Caulfield immediately behind him. Seth felt something displaced in his heart. "I said you won't see her not as an order, but as a truth," Caulfield began to explain. "You are in the same place as her…in this room…just in a different world."

Summer's face looked like all the life in her was taken away. She wore no make-up and she didn't fix her hair. Her eyes had eyebags and her skin was paler than usual…an indication that she had been up crying. She touched the sheets that her husband had laid in. She stayed strong, she didn't breakdown as much around people…she kept this strong persona around people. But when she was alone, it struck a profound scar in her.

"Mrs. Cohen?" the nurse repeated.

Summer hadn't heard her first call. Summer hadn't heard much the past few days. "Yes?" Summer finally responded.

"These were just the clothes that Mr. Cohen came in. The hospital would have sent it to your house, but Doctor Fairchild wanted you to sign papers here and suggested that I give these to you in person because of patient-confidentiality laws, I'm terribly sorry you had to go through such trouble to get these," the kind nurse explained as she handed her Seth's clothes. It looked like the kind nurse had washed his clothing numerous times, just to make sure Summer wouldn't see the blood that had been all over them. "I'm being paged right now, is there anything else you need there darling?"

"No, thank you. I was wondering if it was alright for me to stay here for a few minutes?"

"Oh no problem darling, no problem at all."

Summer sat there. She thought that she'd get his things and swiftly exit, but something kept her there. It was this feeling inside, this magnetic attraction that made her stay for a little bit. She touched her belly for a few seconds and closed her eyes. She then hid her face in her hands and cried.

"Different world? What? Like Siberia?" Seth asked Caulfield.

"Farther yet closer."

Seth looked at him, "Do you really expect me to believe this?" But something in Seth did believe a part of it. Something felt awkward in him. His body was lighter, his senses seemed stronger.

"You died Seth…three days ago to be exact. It took that long for your unconscious soul to get here."

Seth stopped and laughed. "Wait, Ryan put you up to this didn't he?" Seth started to clap. "Way to go Ryan, come out with the cameras…it's great, you're a natural. You got me. You're the cross breed of Billy Bob and Ashton Kutcher. Brilliant Ryan, bravo!"

"I know you feel that what I'm saying is true, even if you say you don't believe it. So I'll just continue, if one stays in this plane for too long, you become a perpetual wanderer…and frankly, no one wants to be that." Caulfield continued to explain bluntly. "You died three days ago, in a car accident, on your way to meet Summer for dinner. A white Lexus in front of you immediately braked…traveling at 80 miles per hour, your impact was critical. Your car flipped over as the black car in back of you also reacted to the impact and smashed your car. You were taken to the Sacred Heart Memorial Hospital where you were then airlifted to St. Jude's Hospital, where a specialist could treat your severe head injury. It was a success and it bought you five hours."

Seth's eyes were watery. All it took was the face Seth had on to convey the pain of trying to accept it. Caulfield looked at him and empathized with Seth's pain, but he continued, "You fought well. But your body had lost too much blood to the extent where you were internally bleeding. A blood transfusion wouldn't have mattered at that point. You became comatose and shortly after—"

Seth shook his head, his eyes still watery. He clenched his fist and finished Caulfield's sentence, "I died."

"I'd try to explain it, but I feel like you believe your state."

"I don't understand it, but I do feel something." Seth sat down and rubbed his head with his hand. He sat there silent for a long while, just thinking by himself. Caulfield stood by the door, waiting for Seth. "So what happens to me now? Is this—"

"The afterlife?" replied Caulfield. "Far from it. It's middle ground between your world and mine." Caulfield signaled Seth to follow him. The two started heading out of the hospital. "Usually," Caulfield began to explain, "one goes straight up to see 'the man'. Their souls are then recycled for rebirth, then they live life and then they die and the process starts all over again."

"So it's kind of like the Buddhist afterlife right?" Seth questioned, still trying to grasp that he's dead. It was difficult to process, so he held back the pain of never seeing his wife, his unborn child and his family and friends ever again.

"Buddhist, Christian, Catholic, Muslim way, everyone on Earth loves to label that which is unfathomable. What is up there can be described in a multitude of ways. A Christian goes up there and sees it as heaven. Who's to say that it isn't? An atheist goes up there and claims it to be a second existence…a second earth. Who's to say that it isn't?" Caulfield continued. "One day, the earth just might be too overpopulated and people might have to stay up there, but for now, we recycle everyone, and allow the population on earth to continuously grow and live life."

"So am I not being reborn into another person?"

"Well, that's where my job comes in…people who get stuck here are special cases."

"Special cases?" Seth inquired.

"Those who end up here have become exceptions to the process because of their special circumstances. That being that they have left too soon and have unfulfilled time back on earth."

"Unfulfilled time?" Seth was confused. "That's a lot of people when they die."

"Yes, and they all come back to this world…they're death was untimely. Their time had been shortened, which causes a problem in the system. You see, most people, whether it be dying of old age, or getting shot at 22, were meant to live up to that point and their souls accept it and continue on up there. They are able to be reborn with a clear mind. The longer you've been recycled, the smarter you are, the more deja vous and correct first instincts you have…but that's a whole different story. But for those with unfinished business…history shows that they grow up to be disturbed individuals…serial killers…sociopaths…etc. because they feel inadequate and trapped in a place they shouldn't be at. The souls that don't accept their death and feel like they still need time on earth for some reason, come here. 'The man' looks over it, sees whether it'd disturb his or her next lifetime and then allows them to go back."

Seth looked at Caulfield confused again. "So what are you saying that I do exactly?"

"Well Jesus and Moses are on your side. They're going to send you back and then when your soul feels its time, will die and head off to meet 'the man' like everybody else."

"And when will that be?"

"No date. Life is just that…random, no one has a date. Maybe after your second day back, you die. Maybe on your 70th birthday, you die," Caulfield explained. The two were now outside by the hospital pool. "I know it's all a bit surreal, most people do not experience this after death—to have to understand his own extinction and then the concept of his revival."

Seth was barely processing the concept of his death and now he had to process this. "Wait, I mean how do I get back? Do I jump back from my burial ground?"

Caulfield laughed. "Well do you remember that one Chris Rock movie, where he takes over an old white man's body?"

"Yeah."

"Well not that." Caulfield cracked himself up sometimes and ONLY himself. "If we allowed you to go back to your regular body, the difficulty of establishing communication with your loved ones and living a normal life with them would be virtually impossible. I mean think of it…you come back as your physical self and what is Summer going to do? Quit her job and run away with you without telling anyone else a single word?"

"Yes," Seth replied.

"Problem is, if the thousands of souls that do get sent back do that, then it'd be chaos. Everyone would know about the process of life and death. Religions would falter. Think about how much the world would change, knowing that they could relive life again? So no, not a possibility, plus, you're body's not going to buried, it's going to be burned. And we also do not sent you back to replace another living person's body. Also chaos…people spontaneously changing as another soul lives in them. Utter chaos."

"So then…"

"So then you are sent to someone down there, who works for 'the man' up there. There are tons of us workers/angels/pimps, whatever you'd like to call us, located anywhere and everywhere. They look out and make sure things remain peaceful. They also help you transfer to a body. These bodies are just a few days dead…still fresh…belonging to 'unknowns'…people who chose to live life without records, without families…without a trace…they run away from home and stay away. Now feel blessed that we have terrific technology. These bodies are reengineered…blah blah blah, I can explain it to you but it'd just be too long. You'll meet Charlie down there and he'll show you the ropes."

"Charlie?"

"Yes, Charlie. What are you, a parrot?" With that, Caulfield shoved Seth into the pool.

And it was darkness for Seth Cohen again.