Disclaimer: Again, I don't own a gee-darn thing.
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ANNIVERSARY
CH 14- IVORY
Summer stood on the balcony, staring down into the amber-lighted pool, The body was a skinny black starfish on the water. Seth's presence at her side was not comforting, he wouldn't put an arm around her for support, not anymore, but it was bracing, steady.
So caught up in a swirl of thought and memories, she was startled by her own voice, small and sad in the expanse of the night.
"It's over."
Though he was next to her, Cohen's voice seemed to come from a long way off.
"Yes."
"And you're leaving." Not a question.
"Yes."
"Not yet. Please." Not a question.
"I can bring you home."
They got back into the car, after Seth removed the other gun from the front seat and threw it into the delicately manicured hedge at the border of the driveway. It wasn't that Summer didn't want to touch it. Well, not just that, but it would also be a stopping point for the police. Finding Cohen's fingerprints would be a 'dead end.'
Summer wanted to laugh at the horrible, horrible pun, but laughing would turn to crying, and then she would collapse, would fall apart, the weak threads at the seams of her would tear, and she would be left in little pieces on the asphalt.
So she didn't laugh.
Without a word, she let Cohen lead her into the car, passenger seat. His hand seemed warmer, but maybe that was her, maybe she had a fever.
She traced the weak fingers of false dawn across the window pane, through the film of dew and humidity the evening had left.
They didn't talk, couldn't talk. He was leaving her, everybody, again. But it wasn't him. The cold pale boy that came back wasn't Cohen. The boy that broke AJ's fingers, gave Caleb a heart attack, and… punished Marissa. It wasn't Cohen. Cohen couldn't do that. She'd spent the night with a stranger, a killer, a ghoul that rose from the grave in front of her.
Suddenly, the black spots swam in front of her eyes, and she scratched at the door handle, the lock, nails splitting and tearing, blood on the leather.
The car swerved, and she could feel Cohen calling to her, begging her to stop, but she got the door open. Falling into space, she did what she had seen in the movies. She curled up into a ball.
Hitting the ground, she caught her breath, scrambled to her feet, and started to run.
Everything hurt, but nothing was broken, she wasn't broken.
But she was, on the inside, where a part of her didn't believe this. Didn't believe that Marissa and Caleb were dead, didn't believe that Seth had killed them, didn't believe that she had killed someone, didn't believe Seth had come back from the dead.
Some small idiot voice inside of her never believed Seth was dead, had died. It was waiting for her to wake up.
She woke up.
The car slowed to a stop in front of the Cohen's house and it had been her idea to come here, because he wasn't done yet.
"Seth, you need to come in."
So he did. With no fight, no argument, not one word and if that wasn't the striking point between her old Seth and this strange new one, then nothing was.
A new day was starting. It was still cool out, but there was the promise of bright sun and a long hot day behind the clouds. She thought it might be nice to get warm again.
The front door was unlocked, and low voices murmured in the kitchen. Theresa and Sandy. Summer suddenly wanted to be in that kitchen more than she had ever wanted anything in her life. Wanted to be with those people, people who knew what she had done, what she had been through, and would hold her anyway.
She watched as Theresa left the kitchen and went upstairs, making eye-contact with the girl. Theresa answered with a nod.
Inside the kitchen Sandy was leaning against the counter, coffee gripped tight in one hand, as he stared out at the pool house. He didn't turn when they entered, but asked just the same, "Is it done?"
Summer waited for Cohen to answer, but he seemed caught in the same view as Sandy, both of them staring out at something Summer couldn't see. So she answered for him, "It is. Tomorrow is going to be strange."
Theresa's voice sounded behind them, "Today. It's already today."
The men were still staring out the window. Neither noticed Theresa come back in the room with a baby in her arms.
Well, he wasn't really a baby anymore.
Summer knew the exact moment Cohen saw the boy, looked past the soft, tea brown skin and black curls to the eyes, as blue as the ocean, surrounded by thick lashes. The room was still.
"Is it his?"
A nod from Theresa.
"Can I hold him?"
Another nod and the baby was handed over, like the precious thing it was, part of Ryan that wouldn't die, a second chance.
Summer watched Cohen holding the baby, every eye in the room was on him. No one noticed the older woman come in until she spoke.
"We call him Zeke. Ezekiel Ryan Atwood," Kirsten stood in the entry of the kitchen, "Seth, is that you?"
Without looking up from the baby's eyes, he said, "Not really, not anymore."
Kirsten stood in the doorway of the kitchen, pale skin and hair framed in royal blue silk that made her eyes burn. Red rimmed and fierce, they burned like a mother's eyes never should. She looked like an angel.
She shook her had slowly, "That's bullshit, Seth."
Summer didn't respond to the profanity. In the months following the murders she'd heard worse from the Cohen woman, said worse in front of her, and if Kirsten wasn't more her mother than anyone else on Earth, then Summer didn't know who could be.
"You're my baby. My little boy, who I carried for nine months and two days. I think I know who you are."
Finally raising his gaze from the dark blue eyes of the baby in his arms, Seth stared at his mother.
Summer held her breath as he spoke, "I remember everything, you know, now. Being carried, being a baby, being raised. I remember feedings and diaper changes, I remember teething, and learning to walk, and first days of school and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
I remember everything.
I remember dying.
And then it didn't mean anything anymore. I was away, apart, and I didn't remember anything of life. Only that there was something to do. So I came back, and did it, and now I have to go."
Seth handed the baby back to Theresa. He slowly lowered his arms back to his sides, then silently walked towards the door.
Kirsten chased after him, wrapping her arms tightly around him, hands pressed against the skin of his hand, his face; eyes tight closed and breathing deep of the earthy scent of he buried son.
And Summer watched as Kirsten's eyes opened again, and her mouth, frozen in a scream.
A baby boy, wandering through a strange world, growing older, growing taller, and everything beginning to make sense, making no sense as he grew into, towards, the adulthood he would never reach. Life, and love, and the light that all children held.
Days spent wandering across sand with his father, warm morning; wrapped in a blanket, and his mother's arms. A brother, and for the first time, a friend he could trust, could turn to, could talk to. Love, with a beautiful brown-eyed girl.
Arms open wide to a future full of the people he loved,
And then it ends. In fear, and pain, it ends. In sorrow, in tears on a grassy lawn, it ends.
But it doesn't. Because there is still something there. The chance for peace, and one more job to do. The search for justice, but for vengeance. Vengeance that could not taint the living, the survivors. Justice that could be carried into death as it was from death.
With a gasp, Kirsten broke free, eyes glassy and startled. "Oh, my baby.."
"It's over now. I'm over now," Seth's voice was quiet, but serious. Summer wanted to shout denials, but there was nothing she could do.
"I have to go. I love you, and I'll see you, all of you, again, and I have to go."
Sandy wrapped his arms around Kirsten, and she turned in his embrace, resting her head against his chest. Theresa, still holding Zeke, had collapsed onto a kitchen chair, burying her face in curling black hair and clean baby smell.
And Summer just stared. Just watched, as the boy she loved, the boy she had loved, walked out of the house, and into the lightening day, and disappeared.
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Note: So, it's been a while, huh? Well, I'm afraid I haven't really wanted to write this chapter. See, this is the last real chapter. Next is a nice epilogue, and then we're done, and this story, ANNIVERSARY, is as dead as it's inspiration.
So, I offer up to you, a little… gift, I guess. I know this story hasn't always made sense, beginning as a fever dream, and written in fits and starts over a few years, so if you have any questions, or requests, or comments, please include them in any review you plan to make for this chapter. I'll answer them to the best of my ability in the last chapter, and possibly add a post-script, if necessary.
And now, if I can get a little emo for a moment. I was re-reading my old reviews and I got a little misty. It's hard to remember sometimes, when I'm fighting with characters and plotlines and everything else in my original work, that I can do this. I can put words on a screen that are worth reading. So, (And I swore I was going to save this for next chapter's notes.) I want to thank everyone who has read this story for your attention and for your patience, with delayed updates and scenes that took a chapter or two to make sense, with sarcastic asides and my early habit of bitching during scene breaks, and with the occasional typo that I actually hope you never caught
Just… Thank you for being interested. Okay sniffle I think I've got it under control. Just know that even if I never receive any reviews for this chapter, I appreciate all of you, and your willingness to put up with me.
And, as my eloquence has clearly deserted me, I'll go ahead and post this.