A/N: Awww, I like this chapter. I'm probably setting myself up for some criticism now, saying that I like it. But I can't help it, I think I really captured the feeling of them moving…(pause while my big head explodes all over the ceiling). R&R, as always!
BTW, this chapter takes place straight after the last chapter, and is spread over the course of a month. Next chapter: Newport, Ryan and Kandy! (I can't make up my mind of having Ryan and Marissa together. Personally I want to make this realistic and I don't it will be if I put Ryrissa together, for some reason. I wasn't even planning a huge Marissa appearance, if one at all, before I got a couple of requests in some reviews. Your thoughts?)
Chapter Three
It wasn't much of anything, it wasn't much at all.
"Just our fricken life," Summer muttered to Seth.
Just their fricken life. Bits and pieces that made parts of their life, formed parts of their family, became tiny sections of their memories.
Summer buried her face into her arms then continued watching the movers pick up their life and throw it into a truck, their life in the form of boxes.
Zeppelin tugged at his arm, his small little face frowning in despair.
"This can't happen Daddy-o," he whispered frantically.
This can't happen Daddy-o. It can't happen. But it was happening and it was still happening.
Life moved like the Flash sometimes. Breaking the sound barrier, just a flash of light that whips past and grazes you on your cheek, to remind you that it was once there but wasn't anymore. It had been a month since he announced that the Cohen Clan was moving. And what a month.
Summer handed in her two-week notice, the day after they decided. She was fairly placid about the whole "idea", telling the kids that she was "bummed about moving too". But he could she was screaming in delight on the inside, doing handstands and backflips in her head. She got up early, a mean feat for Summer and cooked her Cohen Clan pancakes and bacon every morning. On Fridays, her day for music, she played The Killers Hot Fuss album non-stop, her favourite album "in the whole bloody world Seth." She served them bacon while serenading them with Everything Will Be Alright then would collapse on a chair and sigh.
"What a song," she would always say.
Summer was his mood barometer, his source for his moods. If she was happy, then he was happy. And he was feeling happier. It was a dangerous thing, he supposed, his moods being connected with Summer's moods. He knew a girl whose moods were connected with the weather; if it was cloudy, she was grumpy, if it was sunny, she was happy.
He was more reluctant to hand in his notice. Summer convinced him to not look for another job, to start his NOVEL. His NOVEL. That word indented into his mind, scratched onto his bones. His NOVEL. It was like those people who said, "Oh, when I win the lottery, I'll buy that house". Pipe dreams. But he had it in him, he supposed.
Write what you know.
We're all in the gutter but some are looking at the stars.
Summer kept leaving little quotes around the house, sticking them on the fridge. It was very…un-Summer. She hated clichés like those. But she loved him more.
Write what you know. He felt he didn't know much, really.
The rush to move was a simple enough idea. They wanted the kids to be settled before school started up again. "We have to move in a month. Then the kids have two months before school starts again, Seth." So a month it was and a month it became.
Summer quit, he quit, movers were organised, their life was packed into boxes, the kids sulked and Ryan beamed.
"You're coming back to Newport? But that's…great!"
It was the first time he could hear Ryan's smile over the phone.
"Sure you can stay with me for awhile. This house is huge…I can't wait for the Cohen Clan to stomp around it…make some noise."
For awhile. For awhile. He repeated that to Summer repeatedly, while she laughed with Ryan on the phone. We're only staying with him for awhile, he whispered frantically. She swatted him away with annoyed look.
I know, she kept saying. But he didn't think she really did. It wasn't that he hated Ryan and couldn't stand to live with him. It wasn't that at all. It was…the principle of things. It was his pride, biting him on the arse and reminding him that he was moving back to Newport with his own family. He was all grown up and protective of his little family. And he wanted to prove that to everyone. He would never be just Seth Cohen when he lived in Ryan's house.
He had never really been just Seth Cohen. Always Kirsten and Sandy's son or that Chino guy's friend or Summer's loser boyfriend or Caleb Nichol's grandson.
That's why New York, baby it was for him. Because when he went to Columbia, nobody knew any of those people, they just knew him. Zeppelin didn't know who his parents were or who Ryan was or what power Caleb Nichol had. And he didn't care. So for the first time, he was just Seth Cohen. In New York, he had a family and a job and lived in a neighbourhood where he sort of had power. Because it was all his.
"Seth, Newport isn't going to bite our heads off," Summer whispered to him, late one night while the summer heat kept them up till one am, making it impossible to sleep.
"But people won't see us the same way. People are just going see us the way we were when we left. When we were eighteen. And now we're thirty-four. People aren't going to respect us."
"What does respect have to do with this?" She asked from a deep tangle of sheets, limbs and sweat. The muggy air closed around them tightly. He would miss this the most. The soft, hushed conversations late at night, while New York lived outside their window. He loved New York. His life was here.
"Respect has everything to do with this," he muttered.
"Why do you care if Newport people respect you? I respect you. Your children respect you. Aren't we the important ones?"
Aren't they the important ones?
He buried his face into his pillow and turned to her. She was basking in the moonlight, which poured over the bed in a wide, rectangular strip and made her eyes glow.
"It's just that…we've changed a lot Wonderwall. Newport doesn't really like change."
He only called her Wonderwall during these late night talk sessions. He only called her Wonderwall when the temperature rose and their skins both shone with the indication of summer heat. His "stupid little pet-name", she always called it. She loved it. Another stupid Cohen tradition. They had too many. But she loved them.
She dodged his statement. "I'll miss New York summers," she said softly.
New York summers were grimy and dirty, the weather making people angrier than usual. The muggy air made your energy drain, made you sticky, made the back of your knees sweat. But he felt as if that somehow, that was how summer was supposed to be. Newport summers were bright and glary, almost hurt his eyes. The perfect temperatures and the perfect weather coated a layer of plastic over their perfect town. Somehow the "perfect-ness" of the summer almost felt fake.
The Cohen Clan loved New York summers. It meant Fourth of July in Central Park, meant summer holidays spent in downtown Queens, meant freedom. Zeppelin was at his best in the summertime.
Zeppelin refused to pack. He stood rooted in his room, while Halle cried and begged them to make Zeppelin happy. Twins. He had to have twins. Because one Seth and Summer weren't enough. Zeppelin and Halle were pure Seth and Summer at their loudest and most stubborn.
Finally Seth lost his temper and ripped down Zeppelin's poster of Jimmy Paige.
"This is it. We are moving. We are moving. Zeppelin, you've gotta start putting your things away."
Zeppelin stood small in his Superman pyjamas, while his room laid cluttered around him. He shared a room with Halle and her items were packed neatly in boxes in one corner. He looked small and innocent and very much just a seven-year old boy. Seth sometimes forgot that.
Then Zeppelin started to cry and Seth was reminded full force.
"Daddy," he sobbed and buried his face into one of Seth's legs.
Halle started to cry louder and ran over and wrapped her arms around his other leg.
But Seth didn't cry. Because he was Daddy.
"He's got such a mouth on him Sum…I forget he's only seven."
He whispered that later to Summer in one of their late night sessions. Then he cried. Because in front of Summer, he was just Seth and she loved him for it, didn't judge him for it.
The kids started to sleep downstairs in the living room after awhile, when it got so hot. Then one week before they officially flew over to Newport, their beds got "shipped" and they had to sleep downstairs.
"Slumber party!" giggled Halle.
"Slumber party!" echoed Summer.
Manhattan laughed. James laughed and clapped his hands.
Zeppelin and Seth smiled at each other and went and sat down on their hammock on the porch.
"How long do you think we'll stay in Newport Dad?"
"You'll like it, I promise," he could only answer. But he had never really liked it that much and his whole time there, just like his dad, he kept thinking of their times spent in Berkeley. Now Zeppelin would become him and he would become his dad, only Berkeley would be replaced with New York.
"What's going to be the hardest thing?" His dad asked on the phone. "I mean, what's going to be the hardest thing to leave behind? I just…I hate moving."
"New York."
What had he sung to Manhattan, just after she was born? "Our heart is in New York".
Their heart.
"Our life," Summer whispered.
She knew that once Newport was their new postal address, that life would not magically change straight away. She might not even be happy there, just as she was not happy here. It mightn't "solve all their problems". But she was unhappy. And he sort of was too. But however unhappy they were, they still loved New York.
"Will our traditions stop?" asked Manhattan softly, while he and her walked back from the supermarket, late one summer's eve.
"Traditions?" he laughed and swatted off a fly.
"You know, our music mornings, our celebration of the first night of summer and the last day of school…all our little things." She said it softly again, plodding gently on the pavements, swinging her plaits slightly from side to side.
"Of course not baby." He always felt like Vince Vaughn when he called someone "baby".
"But…I mean, we won't be home anymore. We might forget some. You know, some that come like second nature to us, won't be because we're…not here."
He stumbled over an invisible crack in the pavement and smiled at her. "We're the Cohens. We're…New Yorkers," he said triumphantly. "I think we'll survive. We'll show those Newporters a thing or two."
She laughed, her little musical voice floating through the humid air. She stopped outside their house, balancing a paper bag on one hip and placing her hand on the other.
"I think we'll survive too Daddy. You seem a bit happier already."
He kind of was. Every instinct in his body was telling him to frown, to yell, to make this move difficult. But he couldn't help it. Somewhere, he was secretly excited. At the same place, he wanted to cry, because he really didn't want to do this. But he was still excited.
Halle picked up on that. She danced with him in their half empty house, while their furniture slowly disappeared around them.
"Daddy, Zeppelin was blaming you for this move. I told him to blame Mommy, because it's her new job that we're moving for. But he was blaming you."
She paused and puffed out her cheeks then spun herself around, using his arm as a propeller.
"But he doesn't anymore. It's an adventure. Besides, I can become a scientist in anywhere. It will be heaps more fun to perform experiments on Newport people."
She grinned at him and they waltzed their way over to Summer and fell on top on her, while she slumbered gently on their remaining couch.
Halle always wanted to be a scientist. It started early, when Summer taught her how to make crystals from salt, one rainy day in December. From then on, she decided that her "gift to the world" was to discover "things". She never specified what exactly "things" she would discover, just that she would. And when she saw Ghostbusters, at age four on an ageing DVD, she formed her motto, straight from Bill Murray's mouth:
"Back off, I'm a scientist."
She said it with a laugh in her voice and Summer always rolled her eyes.
"She wants to become a scientist. She got her nerdy genes from you, obviously."
"It makes perfect sense that the one experiment you know how to do is to make crystals," he always shot back.
Two days before their flight, Zeppelin invited Billie over. The sister of Dead Zeppelin, as he was bluntly referred to; their last remaining tie of their New York family. The godmother of James.
She was tall, flighty and had a tattoo of her ex-boyfriend on her wrist. Her round, eye-liner smoky eyes stared at the Cohen Clan, as they sat on boxes, their house nearly entirely empty.
"It's just me left," she moaned to Summer.
"You've still got your friends and your family and that current boyfriend of yours," Summer muttered.
Summer had little patience for Billie. She was the god-aunt of James, the best friend of Zeppelin, the sister of Seth's dead best friend but Summer couldn't stand her. She was emotional, crazy, wild and just a little too "stuffed-up". Zeppelin's death, ten years ago, had cut her deep.
"I don't like her around my son," was her constant whisper to Seth.
"She's like family," he always replied.
She lived them with for awhile, back when she was fourteen and had run away from home. She called once a month, always sobbing about what particular boyfriend had left her. She always stayed over every few weeks, crying for hours then disappearing off into the night. Summer was sure she was into drugs.
Thank god Seth wasn't Ryan. That he didn't develop a passion for trying to "save her".
She's un-save-able. He said that when she was fifteen and dropping out of school, dying her hair black. Un-save-able. Summer hated how horrible that sounded. Couldn't everyone be saved? The little six-year old in her asked.
The Cohen Clan spent their last night in New York lying in sleeping bags and playing cards for hours. Zeppelin sat off to the side, staring out the window, trying to memorise every section of New York in his head, preserve each memory in ice. Manhattan kept going off into long bouts of silence. Summer and Halle smiled, always smiled and Seth sat with James in his lap on their porch.
"We'll be alright," he echoed his thoughts.
They caught a seven am flight and flew away from New York, flew away from what was now becoming a past life.
Everything will be alright, Summer sang along with The Killers.
Everything will be alright, Seth prayed.