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. When something happens to him that sends him into a crashing situation, who knows how he will survive. Seth-centric. Lost/OC Crossover.
A/n:
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"Living on a Fool's Hope"
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Our house was crowded again. It was like Chrismukkah, or Thanksgiving. Except everyone was unhappy. Sandy had invited everyone over after the memorial service, and I was going to call a massive amount of take-out when Nana Cohen decided she would cook. I was left to sit around and talk to family who I really didn't feel like. You could smell the tension everywhere. Summer was avoiding Aerin, I was avoiding my dad, as was Lindsay, Alex was avoiding me, Marissa was avoiding her mother, we were all such a joyous bunch. I finally saw Summer walk over to Aerin, who wasn't that far away from me. With what Lindsay had taught me, I was going to eavesdrop.
"I wanted to talk to you," Summer was telling Aerin. Even though I knew I shouldn't be eavesdropping, I had to. It took my mind off the depressing crap.
"Sure, what is it?" Aerin asked politely in her thick Australian accent.
"I don't mean to be mean, I but wanted to inform you that I think you might be gaining some weight. I know it's hard without Seth, I dealt with it, not really, but anyways, don't eat your pain away. You could talk to me," I always thought Summer was a nice person, and she was, but I could obviously tell she was a little jealous. But she had Ryan, or at least used to. He wasn't a very good boyfriend asleep.
"I know I'm gaining weight," Aerin was being nice to Summer, which was good, just Summer was wasn't being very nice.
"Oh, you do? Then, we should talk," Summer looked seriously at Aerin.
"Summer, I'm pregnant," Aerin had told me, and I told Sandy and last week we had decided she would stay for a while here.
"You are? Wow. With Cohen's kid? Congratulations. Excuse me," Summer turned away from Aerin. "Coop? Can I have a sip of your drink?" And Summer went and followed Marissa and Alex.
I smiled at what had happened, even though I shouldn't have. I saw my father coming and I headed to the kitchen. Even though he had seemed upset, he would bring up everything, and I didn't want to. Not yet.
Sandy and my mother-in-law had the kitchen in full swing. They both were hard at work, and I remembered when I used to come home every so often, and found all three of my boys working diligently at dinner. They were a lot better than me at cooking.
I missed those times.
"How's everything going in here?" I asked them, glad to get away form avoidance center.
"We're just about done," Sandy answered.
"I can go set the table," I went to the cabinet, luckily out of the way of Nana Cohen and Sandy and got plates down. Now, how many were there? Ten? I think that was right. No, twelve. Hailey was here, somewhere. As was Lindsay. I began placing the plates when I saw Marissa come in, with Summer and Alex. Summer had taken over Marissa's drink, and they were smiling, even though everything was so bad.
"Can we help?" Marissa asked, I noticed that I hadn't talked to her for long. She avoided our house mostly. For a while, she came over, and hung out, but soon enough, I never saw her.
"Sure, you can help set the table. Forks, knives, spoons, napkins, that sort of stuff," I told Marissa and Alex.
"I'll get the forks and knives and spoons. I remember where they are," I didn't quite fully know the fallout with Marissa and Ryan. I believe it was Oliver. And Theresa. Those two definitely shook things up.
Summer
looked preoccupied, almost finishing Marissa's drink. She didn't look
happy at all.
"You okay, Summer?" I asked her, making
sure everyone was happy to the best extent I could get them to.
"Did you know about Aerin and....?" Summer asked me. So that was the problem. She was jealous, more than I thought.
"Yeah," I answered, and was given some knives from Marissa. I began placing them neatly down on the table, so they were straight and perfect. I was becoming too meticulous.
About fifteen minutes later, we had been seated and I looked around. Everyone was here. Except for my sons. They were so important, and they were missing.
My thoughts went to the hospital where Ryan was lying lifeless on that bed, not knowing any of this was happening. Could he really hear the things that we said? Or was it just a fool's hope? I had a lot of fool's hope these days. Maybe I should just let go and understand that Seth is gone forever.
I couldn't do it. Even if I tried, I couldn't let go of my son. I wasn't going to let go.
We started eating, and I picked up my perfectly straight knife I had set down earlier and a fork, that wasn't quite straight and began to slowly eat. I took little bites, since I wasn't hungry. I wanted to check on Ryan, but I was stuck her. Next to Sandy and Aerin, across from my father and Julie. This was going to be a long night.
"So, Kiki, are you going to tell me who this girl is next to you, or just let us go un-introduced?" Oh no. This wasn't going to go well.
"Sorry. Dad, this is Aerin. Aerin, this is my father, Caleb Nichol," I quickly looked up to my dad and to Aerin before going back to my food.
The two shook hands, and I knew the trouble would begin.
"So, how do you know Kiki?" I wish he would stop saying that. I really did not like that name. But he never stopped calling me it. I should've gotten used to it so long ago, but I never had. Because I hated it.
"Actually, I know Seth," Aerin seemed confused by my nickname, anyone would. Gosh, I hate that name.
"How did you know him?" My father began interrogating her. I felt bad for Aerin, she was totally taken off guard.
"Um, I was dating him," Aerin sounded scared. Almost everyone was afraid of my father. He was Caleb Nichol, the richest and meanest man in Newport.
"Ah, so you're the girl I overheard was having my great grandchild?" I stopped eating. Everyone else did. I looked up and saw every eye on Aerin. How did he figure that out?
I scanned around the table and saw only three faces not surprised from this revelation. Sandy, Summer, and Marissa. Summer must've told Marissa, and my father overheard.
I put my head in my hands and pushed my hair back, trying to avoid eye contact with everyone. I knew Hailey was staring at me, and then shooting back to Aerin.
"So are you?" My dad asked again, thinking that announcing to everyone that someone was pregnant was a normal occurrence at a dinner table. Well, it wasn't.
"Yes," Aerin could barely be heard, but I knew everyone had heard. "Excuse me," She bolted out of the room.
"Why did you do that, Dad?" I asked him once I mustered up the courage to yell at my dad once more. No one talked anymore, everyone just ate in silence.
"I wanted to know if I was right about hearing that I was going to have a great grandchild," My father justified his stupidness.
"But why did you have to announce it to everyone?" I asked him, getting mad.
"I assumed everyone knew. You seem to talk to everyone except me, so I figured they all knew," I was so not in the mood for this talk with my father.
"Well, they didn't. Dad, you are......" I was going to tell him off. "..unbelievable," No I wasn't. I stood up and walked out of the room and up the stairs to check on Aerin. Make sure she was okay. My father did strange things to people. I couldn't count how many people he had made cry at work.
I found Aerin sitting on her bed again, laughing through tears. She had pictures in her hand, and she was flipping through them.
"How are you?" I asked her, hoping she wasn't too emotionally scared from my father.
"I'm fine. A little weirded by your father though," She seemed normal. That was good. Only very robot-like people were a tiny bit terrified by my dad. I think Rachel was like that...
"He does that to a lot of people," I walked in as she sat up on the bed. "What were you looking at?" My natural curiosity was coming out.
"Um, I had picked these up in Sydney about two months ago now, and I never took them out," She paused, sensing I still had no clue what they were. I didn't. "There pictures of me, and Seth."
"Oh," I said, smiling at her.
"Here," Aerin handed me the pictures and I was looking at a happy Seth in a very tiny apartment. He looked so content, and a little bit not like my Seth. He seemed older.
"That's our apartment," She pointed out to me, and I looked in the background. It was really, really, tiny. I could see a tad bit of the kitchen and the bedroom on opposite ends of the picture.
I began flipping through the pictures, missing my son more and more with each of them.
"Can I have this one?" I asked her, showing the picture of my Seth. I had looked at the date. It was about two weeks after he left. He was still my baby. He hadn't grown up yet. He wasn't gone yet.
"Oh sure. Yeah, that's fine. Go ahead," Aerin let me and I continued looking at the photos. All of a sudden, the door burst open and Sandy was there.
"Honey, you gotta come down," He told me. What? What was wrong?
"Why?" I didn't understand.
"It's chaos down there. Julie and Hailey are fighting, and Caleb is trying to referee, which isn't working. I'm afraid they might join sides and go after him. Plus, Summer has just passed out, and I got her to the couch, and Lindsay's watching her, but I don't know how long the Julie-Hailey-CayCay thing is gonna last in the kitchen. And I could've sworn as I was coming up here, I saw Marissa kissing Alex," Sandy gave me a lot to think about.
"What?" I was so confused.
"We gotta get down there fast. I know the Nana is strong, but I mean, the chemo has been wearing her down, and she's never taken on Hailey or your dad, or Julie Cooper. I didn't want to leave her alone down there," Sandy told me. "I am afraid for all our lives and the survival of the house. Mostly the kitchen. I don't think it can take much more revelations. It's been through too much," Sandy was probably just overreacting. But I couldn't be too sure.
"Let's go," I got up and placed the pictures on the bed. Aerin followed me and Sandy led us all downstairs. The first thing I saw was Summer passed out on the couch, with Marissa, Alex, and Lindsay watching her.
"Hi, Mr. Cohen," A slightly guilty looking Marissa said. "Um, she took my drink."
"And mine," Alex added.
"And found the liquor cabinet," Lindsay finished. Aerin went over to help as me and Sandy went into the kitchen. The Nana was trying to settle the fights, but it wasn't quite working. Hailey and Julie were ganging up on my father, but then again, they were fighting with each other.
"How's it going?" Sandy asked his mother in a light voice as she backed to the doorway.
"Well, I'm trying, but I don't know who is on whose side. They keep changing. It's really confusing," Nana Cohen told us.
It had turned out to be a tepid dinner after all. And I thought things would go horribly wrong.
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Two days had passed. It was just me, Sandy, and Aerin in the house. Much better than before. I had woken up with this strange feeling, I wasn't sick, it was just something, like emotion wise. My subconscious was telling me something.
I was watching the television alone, something I rarely ever did. Aerin was upstairs, she secluded herself a lot. Sandy was out, getting groceries. Again, that was something he rarely ever did. I wanted to come with him, but he refused to let me.
Soap operas. I had to induce soap operas. This was why I did work all the time. I never could keep up with these damn shows. Nothing else was on. I wanted to work, but my
father took made me relax. What was up with this sudden "give Kirsten a break" thing? Did they think I would break down? I've broken down way too much in the last....I don't know how long it's been. It's just been long.
I heard footsteps, and I knew Aerin was coming down the stairs. She walked into the living room, and I moved over to let her dit. She sat silently, words were not much use here anymore. Someone, usually me, ended up crying. I really had to get a grip on myself. Tears everywhere.
I made a deal. No crying for.....um, a week. That was it. One tear-free week. That would be hard.
"So, I think the evil twin just came in," I told Aerin and saw her laugh. "Do you get to watch soaps a lot in Sydney?"
"Not really. Sometimes I can, but I can never keep up with them," Aerin replied. It seemed like nothing was wrong in this house. Except both my sons were gone.
"I can't really either. I would be doing work or something, but my dad won't let me. And sandy went grocery shopping. So I'm stuck," I told her, enjoying the company.
"Oh," We didn't say anything else, we just watched as people slapped others, and affairs came and went as fast as the mail, and revelations were a normal occurrence. It kind of seemed a bit like Newport.
My thoughts went back to Seth, and I felt sad, but I didn't cry. No crying. I can't do that. Then my thoughts went to Ryan, and I felt worse. When would he wake up? I needed one of my sons. Badly.
Aerin didn't say anything else, I could tell she had to still be uncomfortable here. She was shy, maybe it was just around us. Maybe she was a lot more open to Seth.
Sandy finally came home about ten minutes later, carrying two paper bags. I told Aerin to stay here, because of the baby, and I went to help Sandy with the bags. I never used to get most of them, Ryan and Seth helped when I came home, but they were gone.
"What took you so long?" I asked Sandy once we got outside.
"Well, there were two lines open, one that was the express line. This lady in front of me has twice what I had and also a million coupons that didn't ring correctly. So I had to wait as the cashier put every single coupon in and had to do price checks and ugh, it was horrible, honey," Sandy complained to me. I could just see him now, getting all worked up.
We brought the groceries in, and Aerin helped put them away, after I told her where they went. It was boring putting them away, just us three. I nearly begged for Seth's sarcasm, or something. I missed him so much, and it was killing me.
I
sent Aerin upstairs, so she could sleep, and Sandy and I continued to
put groceries away. It was 4:19 in the afternoon. The phone rang. I
didn't think it was anything out of the blue.
"Hello?" I
answered the phone absent-mindedly.
"Mrs. Cohen?" Summer was on the other line, and she sounded like she was crying.
"What's wrong, Summer?" I got worried. Oh crap, did something bad happen to Ryan?
"Nothing's wrong. It's Ryan...." I still didn't believe her. Something happened to Ryan. This wasn't supposed to happen. I wasn't supposed to lose my other son.
"What about him?" I was scared to hear it.
"He's awake."
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A/n: Oh yeah!!!
Pumpkin Muffin -- Kim can't kill Seth… haha!
alexis -- PISH!!!
Harper's Pixie -- Haha. You're wish was Ali's command… and Kim is talking in third person again…
Keks -- Relaxed?! HOW CAN YOU BE RELAXED? Haha! Are you another fan of making favorite characters suffer?
i-luv-the-oc-and-smallville -- Ethan can't die, because Ethan is the second best character on Lost… he shall never die!!
