Stranded Memories
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: I own crap. They wouldn't even give me the bloody Lost poster at Disney, and that ruined my day. FOX owns all OC characters and OC related thingys… and ABC owns sobs all Lost related things… even my Charlie…
Summary: Little things can push people over the edge. That very thing happens to Seth Cohen, and he runs away (knowing that it worked before), but something happens sending him into a crashing situation. Lost/OC Crossover.
A/n: Okay, I just read "The Stranger" in my English class, so I am going to be using some quotes from it in the upcoming chapters… because I am like in love with the book. I am also in love with flashbacks, so in the upcoming chapters of my part there will be many flashbacks. Remember, italics are flashbacks… or quotes. And maybe I lied. Maybe this one will be on the island too… just for time sake.
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"Of Life and Death"
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"Whether it was now or twenty years from now, I would still be the one dying. Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter."
"The Stranger" by Albert Camus
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Without consulting Charlie at all I said, "Me…kill me."
The silence that responded my comment was horrible. It seemed to last forever, making me think again of what the hell I was doing.
"What the bloody hell are you thinking Seth?" Charlie said, glaring at me and moving over to stand in front of me and look at me.
"I know what I'm doing Charlie!" I said somewhat angrily, pushing him out of the way. I didn't want to have the time to have any second thoughts about this.
"No you don't, you're being a bloody idiot! You're what… seventeen… why would you want to cut your life short?"
I could barely make out Ethan chuckling to himself in the background, and Claire sobbing, but all of my attention was focused on Charlie. "You don't get it Charlie, I have NO life! I am NOTHING! My brother is dead, and I am as good as dead to my family now. You have something Charlie. You have Claire, you have a band, you have a life. Don't take this away from me!!!" I said, screaming by the end.
I think I scared Charlie a bit, he seemed quite taken aback. I was breathing so heavily and angrily I barely noticed the tears falling down my face.
"Seth, I can't let you do it…" he said, calmly. A little too calm. "I couldn't have it on me, torturing me all the time."
Losing my temper I pushed Charlie to where he nearly fell to the ground. "DON'T YOU FUCKING GET IT?!" I shouted. "I WANNA DIE SO YOU AND CLAIRE WOULDN'T HAVE TO BE APART, SO I CAN SEE MY FUCKING BROTHER, DON'T YOU GET IT??"
By now Ethan was laughing quite hard.
I pushed Charlie once more so he was lying on the ground. "DON'T YOU TAKE THIS ONE CHANCE AWAY FROM ME!!!"
With that, I walked over to Ethan who was still laughing nearly uncontrollably. "Now are you going to keep laughing, or are you going to kill me…" I said, still blocking the fact that I was literally committing suicide here.
His laughter subsided and he grabbed my arms tightly. "You stupid idiot Cohen," he said. It never occurred to me how he knew my last name, but I let it pass. The thoughts of what I was actually doing finally hit me and I was terrified.
He took the rope from around his shoulders and began wrapping it around my wrists very tightly. I didn't fight, but my entire body was shaking like mad. Why was I doing this? I was going to die. He was going to kill me. I was going to kill me.
"Whether it was now or twenty years from now, I would still be the one dying. Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter."
The quote from the book I had read a long time ago echoed in my mind. I really never liked that book, but that quote for some odd reason hit me. I never forgot it, even now. Now it actually seemed appropriate.
I was just speeding up the process, but it didn't make me any less terrified.
Before I realized what exactly he was doing, I could feel my blood pumping around the bonds. Ethan must have tied them really tight if they were beginning to cut off the circulation already. I could feel them urge to vomit come up my chest.
This was really happening. I didn't want to die. Why did I have to be so stupid and tell him to kill me instead of Charlie? WHY!? I felt the tears begin to come to my eyes.
"You are the biggest freaking moron Cohen," Ethan said, throwing me to the ground. I fell on a rock and I could feel it go into my floating ribs. I shouted in pain.
"Did you really think that I was going to kill you over Charlie? You're ruining the whole plan here man. You were supposed to convince him to have me kill him, and that would get him out of the way. Why must you screw everything up Cohen?"
What was he bitching about? What was he talking about? What plan?
"What plan," I managed to get out. My side still hurt like hell.
"You know what I'm talking about…" he said, re-blindfolding Charlie. So he was really going to kill him instead of me. I felt a wave of relief wash over me when I realized that I wasn't going to be the one to die. As much as I wanted to die, I knew I couldn't.
Slowly, I closed my eyes as if to will the pain away, but it wouldn't stop. It continued to emanate from that one spot. My eyes reopened.
"Don't hurt him…" I managed to seethe out in pain.
Ethan chuckled some more. "Oh, I won't," he said, "Quickly, but not at all comfortably…" He smirked. Even though I was still in pain, I tried to get up. I never realized how difficult it was to stand up when you couldn't use your hands.
I struggled more. Every time I moved it burned, but I had to do something, so I started shouting loudly, hoping that there was someone in the area that would come and help.
"HELP!!!" I shouted over and over and over again. Nothing. "SOMEBODY HELP!!!! ANYBODY!!!"
But I was silenced by Ethan kicking me hard in my left side. Damn it to hell. I hated him. I tried to yell again, but was silenced by another sharp kick as well as something being shoved in my mouth.
Run Charlie. But he didn't. I could see it all, and it was useless for me to do anything. I could barely move. While Ethan didn't look very strong, he must have been. My heart nearly stopped when I finally realized what he was doing to Charlie.
He had found a noose. Or ivy, hanging down from a nearby tree. Quickly, he wrapped it around the struggling Charlie's neck. "STOP!" I tried to get out but it was all muffled. If only I could get whatever the hell was in my mouth out of it.
I felt the vomit trying to come back up. That could have been me. Correction. It should have been me. The guilt was coming back. Charlie had a great life, and now it was cut short. It was all my fault. The guy shouldn't have died. He didn't deserve to die, just because he loved Claire that was a wrong reason.
Tears threatened to pour out of my eyes as I looked away when Ethan loosened the other end of the ivy from the tree and pulled on it before tying it tightly around the tree. I heard Charlie gag. I couldn't stop it. The vomit came, the taste of it was enough to make me want to vomit again, but the facts were that there was something in my mouth not only preventing me from speaking, but from letting the vomit out of my system.
I had to swallow it. Not the greatest experience of my life let me tell you that. Just swallowing it made me want to puke again, but I forced myself not to.
Trying as hard as I could to not look at the now hanging Charlie, I tried to get over to Claire, but I stopped. She was looking right at me with her piercing blue eyes, tears falling down them. It made the tears spill out of mine too.
We both looked over at Charlie, and looked away immediately. I couldn't recall what Ethan was doing exactly, but he wasn't bugging us. I looked back at Claire. She looked at me. She let out a loud cry. I could almost feel her pain, just by looking into her eyes.
She really did love him. And he had died, because of me. I continued looking into her blue eyes. They reminded me a lot of Aerin's. But she wasn't Aerin, she was Claire. Time seemed frozen.
Eye contact. I was staring directly into her eyes and her into mine. Charlie was dead. The count was up to two.
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Everything was perfect. Or nearly perfect. The sun was shining when the plane landed in Sydney. I was proud of myself that I had accomplished it. I had run away. I was all the way across the Pacific Ocean from Newport and all of the problems it caused me.
I didn't have to be anyone here. I was Seth Cohen, I didn't have to be what everyone thought I was, because no one new me. It was a new beginning, a fresh start. A new chapter. I wasn't confined to Newport, I had all of Australia.
It never hit me that I had no way to pay for any of it, I just wanted to be my own person. The thought hit me that the time I had chosen to run away wasn't the greatest one. Graduation had been less than a week away. All I needed to do was take finals and then graduate, what was I going to do now?
I didn't allow the thought to plague my mind for too long because I was being ushered off of the plane. Sydney was amazing. Just the airport was great. It was so less stress free than LAX. I wasn't stressed to rush; I wasn't stressed to do anything. I was free to meander aimlessly around.
It was enjoyable.
Not quite sure of what else to do I went over to the currency exchange place. I pulled the five hundred dollars out of my pocket. American dollars, they wouldn't do me any good here. I knew I was going to need some money to get started, which was why I was glad I got some out of the ATM.
Quickly I went to the baggage claim and got my one bag (since I left on such short notice). Looking at the clock, I set my watch so it was at the right time. Then I remembered that I had crossed the IDL… International Date Line, meaning I had to change the date too.
I did.
I hopped on a bus that was going somewhere. I didn't know where I was going. All I knew was that I was in Sydney, and nothing could be perfecter, or so I thought.
On that bus was a girl. I spotted her nearly immediately. She wasn't like any of the girls back home. She dressed extremely conservatively, but that didn't hide the fact that she was beautiful. The way her wavy blonde hair framed her face and the way that her blue eyes sparkled like jewels.
And I was beginning to sound like one of those sappy Lifetime movies. Knowing that time wouldn't be frozen forever, I walked further back and stopped next to her. "Mind if I sit?" I asked.
She said nothing, but shook her head and scooted over, allowing me to sit. She just looked at me. I could feel her eyes burning holes into me. But we sat in silence anyways. Until I broke it, because silence was one thing I simply couldn't stand.
"I'm Seth," I said.
"Aerin," she replied, "Aerin with an A," she added with a laugh. Her laugh matched her perfectly. I couldn't really explain it, but it just did, and her smile brought her face together.
Less than an hour in Sydney and I was already convincing myself that I was in love. Ha. That was funny. Love? I didn't think I was capable of that anymore. Not after having my heart torn out and stepped on twice within the span of… an hour. Maybe I needed this.
"What are you doing in Sydney?" I asked her, trying to make conversation.
She shrugged. "I live here…"
"You live here? That is totally awesome. I mean I'd love to live here, it is so beautiful, serene, carefree. I'm thinking of moving here myself," I said, knowing that I was telling this girl who I knew nothing about that I was thinking about moving to Sydney.
Aerin giggled. Her hair shook when she laughed. "You must be an American…" she smiled.
I was a bit confused. "Yeah, why?"
"Oh, nothing," she said. The bus pulled to a stop. "Well, this is my stop," she said. I got up. I didn't want her to leave. There was also the fact that I had no idea where I was going. I had never ever even thought of coming to Sydney at all.
"I guess I'll see you around then Seth," she smiled, as she made her way down the aisle.
Not knowing what else to do, I followed her. And now I'm glad that I had.
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"GET UP!!!" Ethan's shouting and a quick tug on my arm pulled me out of my thoughts and up onto my feet. He did the same thing to Claire. He seemed to be in quite a rush.
"Let's go," he said quickly, pulling a blindfold over the sobbing Claire's eyes. I took one last look at Charlie, as much as I didn't want to before everything became dark as Ethan in turn blindfolded me.
I sure as hell hoped that Charlie hanging there dead wasn't the last thing I would ever see, but the circumstances seemed slim. I wanted to scream even more, but couldn't. I had no choice but to follow Ethan wherever he was leading us.
I was terrified.
Claire let out a loud scream, before everything became silent again except for us walking.
Charlie was dead. It was my fault he was dead. It was my fault Ryan was dead. I had indirectly killed two people. The feeling in my stomach was a horrible one as we continued tromping through the jungle without any clue as to where the hell we were going.
I just hoped that someone would try to look for us.
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A/n: I'm not that evil… I killed Charlie in my other story, do you really think I could kill Seth? Oh and the plot with Charlie basically follows the plot of the show for the end of ATBCHDI…but for those of you who don't watch Lost… Charlie is saved by Jack and Kate, and I may have a little off beat chapter just with Charlie talking about what happened… which will probably not even be a chapter, but a little offset… thanks to the reviewers:
Harper's Pixie - Haha! Goat? Kill Seth? Possibly. Dom played a guy named goat in a movie once. xD.
alexis - sorry. Crazy? Maybe not. I did…
i-luv-the-oc-and-smallville - Ha! Not kill Seth? shakes head
