Title: Prom Queen

Summary: A new guy comes to the OC from Australia and he's bound to rock the relationships. So who's going to end up his Prom date? Not for SethSummer lovers. Anna comes in a bit later. SummerNew Guy and a bit of SethAnna and the smallest portion of RyanMarissa.

Pairing: SummerTom, SethAnna, RyanMarissa

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the OC characters. I only own Tom and Tina and Sarah and Rachel, the history teacher.

Chapter 15: Last Minutes

"Oh my god, oh my god." Summer repeated as she knelt over Tom who was now lying on the floor. There was a ring of people around them, wanting to comfort her but not knowing what to say. A ring of people wanting to help him but not knowing what to do.

"What I wouldn't do for a shot of morphine." Tom said. Summer strained to smile through her tears and leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. When she went back up she saw a big smile on Tom's face.

"I reckon that's about as good as morphine." Summer didn't have to strain the smile this time. She put a hand on the side of his face and he pushed his face into her hand in a motion that reminded her of a dog.

"Thankyou Summer." Tom returned his head to normal and Summer tilted her head as she pulled her hand away.

"For what?" Summer asked and Tom looked at her with an expression of love.

"Everything."

"You're welcome." Summer said quietly and felt a tear creep down her face uninvited. She swiped at it and Tom caught her hand and pressed it to his lips.

"Remember the soccer game?" (This is describing a chapter which I was meaning to put in but didn't get to.)

"When I was still with…" Summer trailed off and Tom continued,

"Seth." Summer nodded and then moved onto the description.

"It was a sunny day, incredibly hot. You and Anna were on the same team and Seth and I were on the other team. Anna was good and so were you. Seth just liked cracking jokes and I enjoyed digging my nails into things…"

"Moving things such as me." Tom said and Summer grinned through her tears. Reminiscing was partly taking her mind off what was happening but not fully.

"Then when you went to shoot that goal you fell…"

"Onto the closest thing…"

"Me." They both smiled at each other and Tom reached up to gently wipe away a tear from Summer's face.

"Good times."

"Yeah, they were good times."

"I hate to say this again but is it just me or is the temperature below freezing? I'm getting frostbite here." Summer felt the end of her lips twitch in the slight movement of a smile and Tom smiled.

"I thought you were meant to be in terrible pain." Summer said with a sly expression on her face and Tom's expression went serious.

"I am in terrible pain but that doesn't mean that I'm going to complain about it." Tom replied simply. To him pain wasn't anything, not when the girl that you loved was talking to you and she was so completely perfect for you that your heart was bursting. And also when she was your girlfriend it was so completely perfect and he couldn't help but use and reuse the word perfect because that was the only thing that he could use to describe what he felt. Perfect wasn't even strong enough. Nothing was strong enough for what he felt.

"Ah, well, if I was you I'd be complaining, whining and belligerent." Summer counted what she would be doing on her fingers.

"Belligerent?" Tom asked with one eyebrow raised with a mischievous grin on his face.

"I was reading a thesaurus last night." Summer said and continued, "I was too nervous to do anything else."

"Ah." Tom replied with an understanding expression on his face and an understanding tone in his voice. There was a silence and they just looked at each other with expressions of sadness and love.

"It's amazing." Summer said with a slight shake of her head.

"What's amazing?" Tom asked, puzzled. Obviously by the fact that Summer had said something so completely random. Especially with the weird body language which was screaming something weird and off.

"That we are able to talk as if nothing's happening, as if everything's okay…" Summer broke off and began to cry. Tom opened his arms and hid his wince as she leaned down and he wrapped his arms around her. But he didn't let the pain get to him. He was good at that. Sarah had taught him well.

"It's okay, it's okay. Everything will be okay, I promise." Summer broke the hug and asked,

"How can you say that everything's going to be okay? I mean you're…. you're… you're dying Tom." Summer's voice broke and she started to sob. Tom opened his arms again and Summer came into them again.

"Well it's not okay okay, obviously, but it's okay. Because I know that the last thing I'll ever see is your face." Tom reached up at put his hand on Summer's face which was wet from tears. Summer put both of her hands up to hold his hand closer to her cheek. Summer dropped his hand and started to cry again and spoke in broken up speech.

"It's okay for you. But it's not okay for me. You know how hard it is the sit here with you dying on the ground?"

"No, I don't. But I know that you're strong enough to stand it." Tom said and his expression indicated that he really did believe just that.

"How?" Summer asked, half exasperated and half really sad.

"No matter what happens know that I'll always be watching over you. No matter what, you'll never be alone if you don't want to be. All you have to do is ask and I'll be with you." Summer found herself unable to say anything. She just welcomed his hand to her cheek again and cried.

"I was wondering, the first time I got shot," Tom began and Summer wondered about how he could talk about it so casually but she didn't interrupt him, "There was this really nice dream that I had. It was your voice saying that you were sorry and that you loved me. Was it real?"

Summer dropped his hand once again and blushed deeply. So he had heard her when she had said that she loved him the first time he'd gotten shot. That sounded so weird. The first time. Someone shouldn't get shot even once, nevertheless be able to refer to a certain time as 'the first time I / he / she got shot.' Then she realised that Tom had asked her a question and so nodded and replied,

"I do love you. I love you so much Tom." Tom winced slightly as he felt a fresh wave of pain hit him and adjusted himself on the floor but she could see the smile behind the pain.

"I love you too Summer." Summer smiled wider and brighter than any other smile she'd ever seen or experienced before in her life and leaned down to kiss him on the lips this time. This kiss was the most electric, it had the most energy and the most love in it than she had ever experienced before in her life. She felt something change and pulled away. Tom lay there with his eyes closed. He had closed them for the last time.

She saw a tear on his face and couldn't tell if it was hers or his. It didn't matter. She collapsed onto his body and cried harder than ever before. Harder than the previous time he'd gotten shot, harder than when her parents got divorced, harder than any single time in her whole life span. It was as if the dam had lost the wall that was stopping it from flooding the village. So now it was flooding the village. And no one would be left alive.

(Sorry that the chapter's not that long. Sad, sad ending. Two more chapters left and maybe an epilogue if I feel like it. The story about before The OC is getting worked on and it's gonna be called 'Catch Me' I think it's going to be that. Not sure. Probably going to be that but. First chapter almost done but I won't put it up until I finish this story. I'll put a link to 'Catch Me' at the end of the story.)