The Sands of Time

Author's Note: I'm pretty impressed with my quick update here. It came after watching too many Scooby Doo cartoons and finding them far too amusing.

Thank you again for the reviews, you guys are great. They mean loads to me, and it's very touching how you're all worried about Seth's well being. I hope I'm not being too mean to him in this chapter. If so, please file your letters of complaint at the bottom of this screen. On with the story...

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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Chapter 5

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All was silent. There were no birds signing their morning song. No crickets offering a constant background drone. No trucks speeding unnecessarily along the Newport Freeway. Instead, the Arizona sun was creeping west in the cloudless sky, the temperature rising by the second.

The white sands of the desert concealed secrets only the inhabitant reptiles knew of. There was one secret the dried devil grass hid especially well. A young boy was lying unconscious on the sandy landscapes of the Arizona desert, unbeknown to anyone but the reptiles.

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Ryan drummed his fingertips on the headrest in front of him impatiently. It was getting unbearably hot inside the vehicle, even with the windows open. Summer had outwardly refused to have them open at first, due to 'the gross bug things getting in'. However, after thirty seconds of being completely enclosed in the sweltering Range Rover, Summer had stated her preference of mixing with the bugs over being 'sweaty and gross'.

Ryan checked his watch for the billionth time since Seth had stormed off 'to pee'. He had now been gone for fifteen minutes and Ryan was starting to worry. He glanced across at Summer, who was chewing at her freshly manicured nails and whipping her head around, in order to survey the surrounding area, every five seconds. Ryan was obviously not the only one getting worried.

After witnessing another five seconds of her frantic searching, Summer turned around to face Ryan.

"Chino..."

"I'm on it." Ryan reassured her, knowing immediately what she was asking him to do.

He turned to Marissa, who was devouring a bottle of Arrowhead water beside him. Ryan offered her a small smile and she squeezed his hand in gratitude, before he opened the Range Rover's door and stepped into the desert heat.

If he was blown away with the heat and humidity before at the Motel, he was carried away to Oz in a tornado by it now. Ryan forced himself to focus on the task ahead; finding his brother. He told himself not to worry too much. Seth was most likely sitting on the sand, talking to some unfortunate snake, seeing as no one else was up to talking to him at that moment. Seth got like this when people voiced their annoyance at him. He threw a strop like a little kid and distanced himself from everyone around him.

A prime example of this was a few weeks ago. Kirsten had asked Seth to do one small task of putting chlorine into the pool and hot tub while her and Sandy were away for a few days on another of their 'romantic get-a-ways'. Seth, inevitably, had forgotten to do this and when Kirsten and Sandy had returned, it was Seth's unfortunate luck that him and Summer were in the pool. Kirsten had asked Seth if he had kindly remembered to put the chlorine in for the past five days. When all was revealed, Kirsten and Sandy had firmly stated their disappointment in Seth's incompetence to do one simple chore and, in anger, had called him a spoiled child and an exact copy of the other Newport kids. To make things worse, Summer had scampered out of the pool, 'eww-ing' at the fact that the water was 'totally imbalanced', and had stormed off home without even a good-bye. Ryan had not been there to witness the goings-on, as he had been at Marissa's, but when told about it he had felt kind of sorry for Seth. Seth, however, had not done himself any favors by escaping to his boat down on the beach and sailing to a nearby dock, not informing anyone of where he had escaped to. It was clear to assume that this had landed him in even more trouble when he had returned safe and sound that evening.

Although this similarity in events calmed Ryan some, he still worried about Seth. He was younger than Ryan, more naïve than Ryan was and he opened his heart to the world a lot more than Ryan did. Therefore, Ryan automatically felt the need to protect Seth as Trey had done to him. He had felt secure with Trey by his side, ironically, and he hoped Seth felt the same with Ryan by his side.

Ryan stepped into the shrubbery, feeling very thankful that he was wearing pants and not shorts at that moment in time. God only knew what was crawling around his feet. He strained his neck, looking around the mass landscape for any sign of an out of control Jew 'fro.

"Seth." Ryan bellowed, smiling slightly as he heard his voice echo through the vast wilderness.

"Seth!" After listening for any sign of a reply and hearing nothing, Ryan's heart began to beat slightly faster in his chest.

He swallowed in order to relieve the tight feeling in his throat and began to move a little faster, slight panic setting in. He just wanted to find Seth, shout at him some for scaring them all to death, although he was sure Summer had that one covered, and get back to the car. Ryan would for sure be driving the home leg of their journey, not trusting Seth with the wheel again in this lifetime. He would get Marissa to help him navigate their way out of Arizona and back to California so they could get to Mexico sometime before Chrismukkah. He would not trust Seth or Summer with the map, even if they were doing PhD's in Cartography.

Ryan's future plans were cut short as soon as his foot bumped against something solid and body-like. Ryan stood motionless for a very long second, his heart in his throat. He then willed himself to look down and his worst fears were confirmed. He was faced with an unconscious Seth Cohen.

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Summer sighed, extremely bored and irritated with the whole situation. She was also extremely worried about the where-abouts of her boyfriend, but she was trying ever so hard to disguise the overwhelming worry. After all, Seth Cohen had pissed her off. Instead of partying in up in TJ and having lots of hot sex with said boyfriend, she was sat in a two-hundred degree SUV with the boring Siamese twins, well one of them, lost in the desert. Woo frigging hoo.

"Coop, pass me a water." Summer demanded.

"Manners Summer?" Marissa grumbled.

"Coop, I'm thirsty, hot and pissed off. It is not my fault that your annoying and extremely unflattering slurping behind me is causing me to crave water. I have no time for manners."

Marissa rolled her eyes and handed Summer a two liter bottle of water. Summer grabbed it immediately, and practically poured the whole lot down her throat, savoring the feel of the liquid moistening her dry throat. So what if it was warm water and tasted as though it had come straight from the hot faucet in her bathroom at home? It was still water and water in desert heat was gooood.

Marissa gasped in horror behind her, which immediately made Summer's heart jump a million miles.

"Summer, you did not just drink all of that two liter bottle?" Marissa's voice was laced with panic and disbelief.

Summer turned around in her seat to face Marissa. "What did you expect Coop? For me to take one sip when I'm dying of thirst?!"

"Summer! That was our last bottle!" Marissa shouted.

"Well you should have told me and not handed me the whole bottle!" Summer retaliated.

In the middle of all the shouting, both girls were totally oblivious to a panic stricken Ryan approaching the vehicle with a limp Seth in his arms. It was only when Ryan banged on Marissa's door at the back of the car that Summer and Marissa became alert.

Marissa jumped a mile, before realizing Ryan was carrying an unconscious Seth, and she opened the door as quickly as she could. Her mouth was not able to form words as she took in the sight in front of her.

"Get out." Was all Ryan said, his tone forceful and instructive enough to let Marissa know the serious nature of his intentions.

She hurried out of the back seat, watching on as Ryan lay Seth's still body down on the seat.

Summer sat glued to the passenger seat. She could not move, speak, or comprehend anything that was happening. Her mouth was so dry as her lips opened and closed, speaking silent words. She could barely hear Ryan calling her name from outside the car and she was not aware of her legs moving her body out of the car and into the back seat where Seth lay.

Her mind snapped into action when she laid her eyes on Seth. His face was so extremely pale and his skin felt so dry as she held onto his hand tightly. Not a single bead of sweat lay upon him as his head rested in her lap. His eyes were closed, but looked ever so sunken, which disturbed Summer greatly. Tears began rolling down her face as the tragedy dawned upon her.

Ryan immediately started the engine and sped off down the desolate desert road.

Marissa was the first to stutter any sound and break the deathly silence that filled the air.

"Wh-what happened?" She asked Ryan, not wanting to look behind her and see Seth in the awful state that he was in.

Ryan gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands, so hard that his knuckles turned white. He put his foot to the floor and sped down the track well above the allowed speed limit.

"Ryan?" Marissa asked again, her voice panicked due to Seth's condition and Ryan's abnormal behavior.

"I don't know, okay?! I'm no doctor!" Ryan shouted in frustration, anger and fear.

"Okay". Marissa mumbled, looking away, hurt by his outburst,

Ryan sighed. "I'm sorry. I found him collapsed on the ground. He's breathing, but there's something not right."

They heard Summer whimper from the back seat. Marissa's head turned around, desperately thinking of a way to comfort her best friend.

"It's okay Sum, we'll find a hospital. They'll be able to get Seth the medicine he needs."

"He's so pale." Summer whispered, oblivious to everything but the boy who lay her in her arms. She stroked his hair, willing him to open his eyes.

"Marissa, 911, now." Ryan ordered, throwing the cell phone at his girlfriend. Seth needed to get to a hospital, and soon, because by the looks of things this road was never ending.

Marissa did as instructed, quickly punching in the three digits. She was met with a serious of recorded instructions. When she finally got through to an operator, she began stumbling over her words, nervous and frightened of the connotations the phone call brought.

"I...we...my friend needs help." She stammered.

Marissa then heard a beeping sound in her ear, followed by two words from the operator before the line went dead. Marissa's heart dropped as she took the silver flip phone away from her ear and gaped at the black screen.

Ryan looked across at her, questioning why she had stopped the conversation. Marissa frantically pressed at the power button and her worst fears were confirmed when an empty battery icon flashed up on the display screen.

"Shit!" She shouted, throwing the phone down to the floor.

"What?" Ryan asked, his tone knowledgeable that something was very wrong.

"The fucking phone has no battery!"

Ryan bit his lip, venting his frustration out on the steering wheel as he thumped it hard with his right palm.

"Why the hell didn't you charge it?" Marissa shouted.

"Seth was meant to!" Ryan shot back.

Amongst all the shouting, Summer began to cry harder. "Don't you dare blame this on Seth!" She screamed at Ryan.

"What are we going to do? We're lost and he needs a hospital." Marissa asked frantically.

"We just need to keep driving." Ryan attempted to calm things down. "We must reach a city, or a town, or anywhere with a phone, soon."

Only seconds later, as if the fates had really turned against them, a spluttering sound was heard coming from the Range Rover's engine. Ryan's eyes widened as he pushed his foot down on the gas some more, but nothing happened. He managed to swerve the car to the side of the track, before the engine died altogether.

Ryan's eyes rested on the dashboard display. The needle indicated the gas tank was empty. They were stranded.

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Please review. Chapter 6 coming soon.

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