Okay, so I'm about to go out and play Tequila pong (don't ask. My friend Ben ran out of beer), but I wanted to finish this and get it up before I did, because tomorrow, I'm assuming that I won't be up until well into the afternoon. Anyway, please review and tell me what you thought of this chapter and I'll try to get the next one up as soon as possible! Oh, and how amazing was the premiere?!? I counted down all day. I think by the time I had gotten to "It's on in an hour and twenty minutes!" my roommates were all ready to kill me. Anyway, review please!
Disclaimer: Um. I don't own the characters.
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"Gin!" Seth screamed out as he slammed the cards down on the bed.
"Seth, we're playing Texas Hold Em'," Ryan pointed out. Kirsten giggled, and Sandy just shook his head as Seth sheepishly picked back up his cards.
"You could have let me in on that little tidbit of information," Seth said angrily as he tried to restore some of his dignity.
"Cohen, we stopped playing Gin Rummy like fifty years ago," Summer told him rolling her eyes.
"Like ten minutes ago," Seth corrected. "It could have happened to anyone." Kirsten gasped and her hand went immediately to her stomach.
"What is it? What's the matter?" Ryan asked jumping off the bed and reaching for the phone.
"No, it's just a kick, feel," Kirsten said as she grabbed his hand and placed it on her stomach. "Can you feel that?" The look on Ryan's face said that he definitely felt that.
"That's amazing," he said softly. Seth stuck his hand on his mother's stomach as well and Sandy placed a hand on Kirsten's back and leaned in and placed a kiss on her temple.
"What's it feel like?" Summer asked placing a hand on her on flat stomach.
"It's hard to explain," Kirsten said. "Come here, sweetie, give me your hand." Summer had wanted to feel it for herself, but was reluctant to place a hand alongside Seth and Ryan's. She wasn't, after all, really a part of their family, although she had made herself a permanent fixture at the Cohen house. Kirsten's warm hand grasped hers, and placed it on her stomach.
"Wow," Summer breathed. They all sat there in silence for a moment, before Sandy spoke up.
"I'm going to go make some more popcorn. Guys, want to come help me carry refills of drinks?" Seth and Ryan reluctantly moved away from Kirsten and followed Sandy out of the room leaving Kirsten and Summer alone.
If someone would have told Summer that she would be over the Cohen's house playing cards with Seth Cohen and his parents instead of at a party a year ago, she would have told them in her matter-of-fact frank way that they were full of shit.
But here she was. Marissa was supposed to be there too, but at the last minute had to go to some function with her mother and Caleb. Seth had commented that it was the first thing he would thank his sibling for when he or she arrived. Because Kirsten was on bed rest and obviously couldn't go, the rest of the family wasn't required to go to the black-tie events either. Summer had opted out of this one, knowing that she would rather hang out with Seth and his family than go to a party with people that she was slowly but surely drifting away from.
"I wanted to say," Summer started. "I just....thank you for letting me come over all the time. I know that you probably want to spend time as a family, and instead I'm butting in but...."
"Honey, we love having you over," Kirsten interrupted her. "Don't worry about it. As long as you know that I'm going to exploit you for babysitting eventually." Summer grinned.
"No problem," she told Kirsten. Summer wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to have Kirsten Cohen as a mother. She wondered if Seth knew how lucky he was. He had never known what it was like to come home to an empty house, or to have your mother leave you, or to have your father buy your love. Much to Seth's chagrin, Sandy was always hugging his sons and trying, unsuccessfully most of the time, to kiss them as well. Sandy was just that sort of touchy-feely guy. "Hey Kirsten?"
"Yes sweetie?"
"I just....did you know my mother when she was pregnant with me?" Kirsten's heart broke for Summer.
"Sorry sweetie, I was pregnant with Seth, and Sandy and I were living up in Berkeley still at that point," Kirsten told her running a soothing hand up and down Summer's back.
"I just...I wondered if she had gotten excited at all about being pregnant...like you are, you know?" Kirsten was silent for a moment.
"I'm sure she was. She loved you Summer." But not enough to stay, Summer added silently in her head. The conversation was interrupted from going any further by the entrance of the boys.
"Dad, if you would have just listened to me and pulled the popcorn bag out when there was more than two seconds between each pop, we would not have burned the first bag. There is an art form to making popcorn, and clearly you have not yet mastered it."
"I hit the popcorn button Seth, that's what that's there for."
"Machines are not foolproof, Dad," Seth argued.
"Can you two stop and hand me the popcorn?" Kirsten asked reaching out for the bowl which Sandy handed to her. "Okay, you can continue again."
"Seth, let's just play okay?" Sandy suggested taking his seat next to his wife.
"And it's poker this time, Cohen."
That frankly will not fly
You will hear
The shrillest highs
And lowest lows with
The windows down when this is guiding you home
Eight months before:
Kirsten and Sandy decided that the sooner they told the boys the better. It was agreed that at dinner they would break the news to them. Kirsten still wasn't sure how they would react to finding out. She admitted to Sandy that she was actually more nervous about Ryan finding out than Seth. Although, she wasn't too eager to see Seth's reaction either.
"Hey guys, can we talk?" Sandy asked as they all finished eating.
"Yeah sure," Seth said as he pushed his empty plate away. "Does this have anything to do with why Mom disappeared today?" Seth wasn't too oblivious not to notice that his father had taken his mother's hand and was rubbing a thumb over it.
"Sort of," Kirsten admitted. "Well, I've not been feeling very well lately, and I went to the doctor's today..." She saw both of their faces start to pale, and she knew that she was panicking them both.
"Are you sick?" It was Ryan who asked this question in a small voice.
"No, no," Kirsten quickly assured him. "There's no easy way to say this...I'm pregnant."
"You're pregnant?" Seth repeated. "As in with child?"
"Yes," Kirsten nodded.
"I'm going to have a baby brother or sister?"
"Yes," Sandy chimed in. "What are you guys thinking?"
"Um....I think...that as long as you assure me that the stork is going to bring this baby and it in no way applies that you two still have sex, then I'm happy, I guess?"
"You guess?" Kirsten's eyes filled with tears, and it was the first reminder to Sandy of what was to come. With Seth, she had cried at the drop of a hat, and gotten angry just as quickly too.
"No, Mom," Seth saw the tears too, and scrambled to fix it before she started to cry. His mother was not known for her emotional outbursts, and no one quite knew what to do when she did. "It's great! Congratulations!"
"Thanks, honey," Kirsten said standing up and hugging her son. They all then looked at Ryan who was still trying to wrap his mind around it.
Kirsten was going to have another baby.
They wouldn't want him there anymore. With all the trouble that he caused? They would have to focus on the new baby, and not on an angst-ridden teenager and all the baggage that came with him.
"It's great you guys," he said forcing a smile on his face. Sandy saw right through both the smile and Ryan's lie. He and Kirsten had briefly talked about already how they would have to reassure Ryan that they wanted him there.
"Thank you sweetie," Kirsten said wrapping her arms around him.
"I'm going to go finish my homework," Ryan said wanting to leave the house and let the Cohens have this moment alone as a family. Before anyone could say anything else, he bolted from the house out to the pool house, leaving all three Cohens to wonder who should first go out and talk to him.
It was Kirsten who spoke up first.
"I'll go talk to him," she said as she headed towards the door. She knocked softly on the door and stepped in. "Can we talk?"
"Sure," Ryan said putting his book down. This was it, he knew it. They were going to ask him to leave. They were going to tell him that they would do their best to find a great foster home for him, but that they just couldn't take care of three kids, when they were only used to taking care of one.
Kirsten didn't know how to start. She didn't quite know how to get it across to Ryan that they loved him and that they wanted him there.
"Ryan this baby...it changes a lot," she started. Here it comes, he thought to himself. "But one thing that doesn't change is that we want you here. You are a part of our family now, and we love you." Well that certainly wasn't what Ryan expected to hear.
"But won't you have your hands full?" He asked softly. "You don't need the added trouble of taking care of a kid that's not yours when you have a baby."
"Who says that you aren't ours?" Kirsten replied with a smile.
They will see us waving from such great heights
"Come down now"
They'll say
But everything looks perfect from such great heights
"Come down now"
But we'll stay....
Present:
Sandy was rubbing Kirsten's back as he read the newspaper. Her due date was now a little more than a week away and they were all ready for her to go into labor. But no one was more ready than she was. She was sick of bed rest, she was sick of Sandy having to help her to the bathroom and to take a shower. She was sick of watching television, and she had finished all of her books.
It was ready for this kid to come out.
"Hey, I was thinking," Kirsten spoke up as she flipped through a book of baby names. "We should probably start seriously discussing names." They had once tried as a family to sit down and talk names, but after a few suggestions from Seth such as Thor and Stormy, they had told the boys that they would decide the name.
"Got any good ones in there?" Sandy asked.
"I don't even know where to start," Kirsten complained.
"Well, open the book to a random page and pick one out," Sandy suggested. Kirsten closed the book and opened a random page and pointed.
"Ophelia? Isn't she the character in Hamlet that drowns herself?"
"That would be her," Sandy confirmed as he continued to rub circles into Kirsten's back.
"No way is my daughter going to be named after someone who drowned."
"That includes all Shakespearean characters that die in tragic ways, right? So no Desdemona?" Kirsten sighed and threw the book down.
"This is too hard. How did we decide Seth's name?" She turned from her side to her back. Sandy shrugged. "Well, what was he going to be if he was a girl?" Both were quiet as they strained to remember.
"Maybe Seth is right," Kirsten said. "We're too old, look we already can't remember anything!"
"No, honey," Sandy said sensing that Kirsten was going to go off on one of her mood swings. "Seth is not right. Seth is never right. Seth just babbles to make noise. We're not too old. You're a wonderful mother, and this baby is going to be lucky to have you."
"Really?" Kirsten sniffled a little.
"Really," Sandy confirmed nodding. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the temple. She was a wonderful mother, and Sandy wondered for the thousandth time how he had gotten so lucky to have gotten her.
He wondered what he had done to get such a beautiful, incredible wife, and amazing children. But whatever it was, luck or if it was a higher power making up for his own crappy childhood, he wasn't going to complain. He looked down at Kirsten, who with Sandy rubbing her back, had fallen asleep.
No, he definitely wasn't going to complain.
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Okay, off I go. Tequila pong awaits! Let me know how you liked it! Thanks!