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: For those of you who didn't notice, there is a story within a story with the Aerin flashbacks… And this is turning about to be mainly flashbacks, sorry for the length.
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"Claire Was Gone"
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"What really counted was the possibility of escape, a leap to freedom, out of the implacable ritual, a wild run for it that would give whatever chance for hope there was."
"The Stranger" by Albert Camus
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Unfortunately, I didn't die.
My eyes slowly opened, not adjusting to much of anything. The lighting was dim as ever but my eyes wanted to close again. I refused to let them. They rolled around in their sockets, trying to find someone. I couldn't remember who. Then again, I couldn't remember much of anything that happened before…
It hit me like a train. Everything came flooding back. Even the memories made my muscles ache in pain. I let it out of me.
Then I could hear someone coming, but my head wouldn't move, so my eyes moved as far over as they possibly could go and I spotted Claire heading over to me. She looked just like I remembered her. So maybe nothing happened. How long had I been out? Was it still my birthday?
So many questions ran through my head that I couldn't vocalize.
Suddenly, I saw someone's face looming over me. At first, I wanted to cry out Aerin before I remembered how similar Aerin and Claire were in appearance.
"Seth?" I heard her ask. I cracked a small smile to let her know that I had heard her. "Oh God, Seth, don't you ever do that ever again!" she said with a sigh before disappearing from my view. What had I done to her?
I began to try to get up before I realized that my left arm was completely useless and that I was being held up only by my right arm. "What are you doing Seth?" I heard Claire ask me. My back was turned towards her. I didn't respond.
My concentration was focused on one thing and one thing only and that was sitting upright. I couldn't lie flat on my back forever.
It may hurt, but I had to do it! I felt Claire beginning to help me up as well.
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I looked around the apartment. It was small, but cozy feeling. It was smaller than the pool house, but that didn't make it seem any less cozy.
"Are you coming in or what?" she asked. It was only then that I noticed that I was just standing in the doorway looking around. Before she had the chance to pull me anymore, I stepped inside and she closed the door behind me.
Damn she moved fast.
"Now, your name is Seth Cohen, and you have no idea what you are doing here?" she asked me, sitting down in one of the chairs in her apartment.
"Oh, no," I answered quickly. She motioned to the other chair and I sat down in it. "I know what I'm doing here… I just don't… know what I'm… doing here," I said, knowing that I had just made a total fool of myself. I just didn't know how to reword it.
She giggled. "You're hilarious…" she said. I could feel some sarcasm, but not much. "How old are you Seth?"
Crap. Seventeen, I wasn't legal… "Eighteen," I answered almost immediately. I hoped it didn't sound too rushed, but it was a no-brainer, someone asked your age, you reply right away, unless of course you had a birthday and weren't used to being a certain age or anything. "You?"
As far as I could tell she didn't expect anything. "Nineteen. So what brings you to Sydney?"
I laughed. I wasn't going to tell her the truth, I barely even knew the girl. What did I know about her? Her name was Aerin Jenkins and she was nineteen. That was sooo much information.
"Well?" she asked.
"Well, I needed a change of scenery and thought that Sydney would be nice, so I came here…"
"Holy shit, are you made of money or something?" she asked, a look of awe on her face.
I chuckled again. "I guess, my grandpa is… I'm not. I can't hold a steady job, not that I needed to then, but I guess I do now…"
"So you're really thinking of moving here then?" she asked me, her crystal blue eyes penetrating into mine.
"Yeah," I answered. It was the truth now.
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I made my way up the wall and put all my weight on it, relieving all the pressure from my arm. It felt good.
"Are you okay Seth?" I heard Claire ask.
"Yeah," I said, listening to how scratchy my own voice was. We sat in silence for a while with the only noise being breathing and an occasional seethe in pain from me while trying to figure out what was wrong with my arm.
Claire broke the silence. "What is wrong with you?" she asked me.
I turned to look at her, but I couldn't focus on her, or anything else for that matter. "What?"
"There's something wrong with you… what is it?" she asked again, only this time slower.
"Homesickness," I stated simply.
"I guess we're all homesick I guess," she said. I could hear sadness in her voice. "What… what were you doing on the plane?"
As if she didn't know. I only screamed it at Charlie. "I was heading home. I guess you could say I ran away from my problems. Ended up in Sydney, got phone call, brother dead, went home, plane crashed, life sucks," I said simply, getting it all out once and quickly, before looking down.
Ryan was dead. It seemed to be okay when I said it in my head, but when I said it out loud, it really sunk in, and it hurt. My only brother was gone. He wasn't even my brother, but he was close enough to be considered my brother.
We were silent again. She probably couldn't think of what to say, so I broke the silence. "How about you?"
She didn't answer right away. "I don't really know. I went to this physic, and he said that my baby would be dangerous if not raised by me, or something like that, and then proceeded to tell me that there was a family in LA that my baby would be okay with, and I believed him. Look where it got me," she said slowly, sniffling by the end.
Now I was the one who didn't know what to say. More silence. I had heard enough silence in the past week to last me forever. If I never had a moment of silence ever again, it would be too soon. The only problem was, I didn't know exactly what to say.
Claire saved me from the silence. "But I guess you're worse off here than me. I mean Ethan seems to hate you. You were out for nearly two days, I though you were dead," she trailed off.
So that answered one of my questions. He must have hit me pretty hard on the head. Two days. That was a long time. I didn't say anything.
More silence. Slowly, I drifted off to sleep.
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Sydney was beautiful. After Aerin taught me the reins, got me a job at a local club. Nothing could go wrong. Sure I wasn't making a lot of money, but I had a job, a place to live. And no Newport. I hadn't really even thought of Newport.
What was even better was that I think Aerin was my girlfriend. We did everything together, and I think I was her boyfriend, at least in the way she was treating me. Like I was a human being, not some stupid little toy.
It had been three weeks I had been in Sydney, three whole weeks when Aerin came out of the blue and said:
"I want you to meet my parents."
WHOA! I would have never expected that. She had parents? I had never even heard her talk of parents. I thought she was one of those chicks that like… didn't have any parents. I was wrong.
"Uh… okay?" I said, as more of a question than a response to her statement. I wasn't good with parents. I mean I totally screwed up with Summer's parents, and I think I had a direct influence on why my parents wanted a divorce.
Seth Cohen Parents NOT GOOD!!!!
"Awesome Seth!! They're going to love you!" I laughed slightly as she hugged me. So she did like me. Did this mean we were going out? I was about to ask her when she kissed me. And it wasn't just a peck either.
I was confused.
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The next thing I knew I was in a small town outside of Sydney with Aerin and she was knocking on the door. I was nervous as all hell.
"Just be yourself Seth, there's nothing wrong with being yourself."
I laughed. She didn't get it. The equation. Parents and I… we didn't work. I was about to back away when the door opened.
A small woman that looked to be about fifty answered the door. "AERIN!!" she shouted, grabbing her daughter (I think) and hugging her tightly. Then she noticed me. Shit. Couldn't run now. "And who is this strapping young man?" she asked.
Me? Strapping? The woman must have been high. "Mum, this is my boyfriend, Seth. Seth, this is my mother." Well, that answered my question; she did think I was her boyfriend. See, this wasn't that bad.
The woman looked at me. She was quite intimidating, even though she was like a few heads shorter than me. Then without warning, she hugged me. Must have been a hugging family, like the one on Full House. I used to watch that show. It was still on Nick at Nite… but that didn't get Nick at Nite here.
"Nice to meet you Seth, come in come in, we don't bite. Well, can't say that for Sandy…" she said with a chuckle. Sandy. Dad. Why was this happening?
I was still a bit taken back. This was quite an odd experience. Aerin's mom seemed… cool. Maybe a little high, but cool.
I stepped into the house. It was bigger than the apartment, but it still had that cozy feel to it that none of the Newport mansions had.
Then I spotted an older girl, who looked to be about… ten years older than Aerin sitting on the couch. She stood up and hugged Aerin when she walked into the room. "Never thought I'd see you around here. You have the fancy job in the city," she said rolling her eyes. Then she looked at me.
"And who is the flavor of the month?" she asked laughing.
Aerin slapped the girl playfully. "Mercedes, this is my boyfriend, Seth… not flavor of the month. Seth, this is my older sister, Mercedes."
She held out her hand and I shook it. It was less awkward than the hugging. "How long'll this one last?"
This was a bad idea.
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Once again, my eyes opened, but I wasn't safe. I was still there. I looked around for Claire and found her. She had fallen asleep lying with her head against one of the grungy, dirty walls. "Claire…" I said, trying to get her to wake up. I had a plan.
"Claire… Claire…" I said, realizing that trying to get up would be useless with only one good arm. I could make her out moving.
"Seth?" she asked, moving closer to me. I waited until I could see her before taking a deep breath and relaxing.
"I have an idea…"
She didn't respond, she just stared at me. I stared back. This was a waste of time. Time a precious commodity that I felt we didn't have enough of at this moment. "Are you up to it?" I asked.
"For what?" she asked quietly.
"To get out…" I said, hoping she would understand where I was coming from.
"Like… escape?" she asked. I nodded and she sighed. "It's not going to happen Seth, they watch us like a hawk."
I smiled. "You're doubting the brains here," I said, the little inside joke with Ryan. She didn't get it. "I have a plan. I don't think that there are that many of them. If I can cause enough of a scene to distract them all, you can run."
This feeling deep inside of me knew it was going to work, but Claire would never agree to it. Not only was her baby still here, but she'd never let me do this.
"But Seth…"
Ha. Who was right?
I cut her off. "No buts. Get out. I don't think you understand that all I am is… well, I'm not important. Maybe you never noticed, but I'm the one that they hate. They could kill me at any time. It doesn't matter. You… people care about you Claire. No one cares about little old Seth Cohen, you know…"
She cut me off. "No one cares about you? What about the people at home? Your parents, your girlfriend… you can't tell me that they don't care about you."
I looked to the ground. She brought up the bad subject. "They already probably think I'm dead. They didn't come after me when I ran away, they don't care. You need to get out of here. I'll only have one chance, and you better take it."
Silence. I looked straight in her eye. I could tell she was thinking about it really hard. She closed her eyes and reopened them and nodded.
Good.
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Mercedes seemed, a little strange. But oddly a lot like Aerin. Of course, they were sisters, so maybe that had something to do with something.
Mrs. Jenkins (I wasn't about to call her by her first name, or mom) was cooking dinner, and I wanted to help, but she shooed me out. I had never been shooed out of a kitchen before. It was an odd feeling.
So I sat down, next to Aerin who was in a deep conversation with her sister about the television show that was on the previous night. I slept. I didn't watch it. So I felt out of place.
"And then, they found him, three bullet wounds, but who shot him?" said Aerin. She was acting like a giddy little girl.
"I think it was Jimmy. Because I mean, he loved Lola, but Lola loved Adam and… it was so sweet."
Once again, I looked lost. Correction. I was lost. Stupid night time dramas. Let's see how much crap we can do. It was like a soap opera, but not on when the sun was shining. And possibly more sex. That was all.
I began to zone again until the door opened and I heard Aerin squeal, "DADDY!!!" before jumping up and running towards the middle-aged man that had just walked in.
"Aerin, what a pleasant surprise. Run out of money?" he asked with a laugh. Aerin laughed too.
"Daddy, why do you think that the only time I show up is when I need money?" she giggled. "Sometimes I come for other reasons."
I sunk down in my seat. The father curse. Every time I met a girl's father, I seriously screwed things up. Always.
"Like what dear?" he asked laughing.
"My boyfriend. We thought that he should meet you guys." Here comes the inevitable.
I could feel his eyes looking at me. I turned to look at him and he laughed. "Dad, this is Seth. Seth, this is my dad." Slowly, I stood up, and realized that I was shorter than this guy. Being shorter than him wasn't the best thing in the world right now. It just made me feel so much more insignificant. I didn't need to feel any more… out of place.
He held out his hand and I shook it. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Jenkins," I said, not quite sure of what else to say.
Mr. Jenkins laughed and shook back. His grip wasn't as firm as I expected it to be. "No one calls me Mister, Seth. Just call me Steve."
"Okay Steve…" I said, still not feeling at all comfortable.
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Time passed. I didn't know how long of a time we were sitting there, in utter silence. It was unnerving. Claire didn't talk, I didn't talk. There was nothing to talk about. I had a feeling that she wasn't going to do it, but she had to.
A sigh escaped me. I was scared, I was nervous. Every possible emotion imaginable other than relief and happiness were coursing through me.
Suddenly, a horrible feeling shot through me. I couldn't explain it, it was like a panic, a horrible horrible panic. "Claire… don't forget," I whispered urgently. I don't know why I did it, but I was glad I did.
"Why?" Claire asked me, but I never got to respond.
Suddenly the hatch opened up and light poured in, blinding me. I closed my eyes slightly and heard someone just jump down. His shadow blocked the light and I opened my eyes. It was Ethan. It was as if I knew, it was as if I knew that he was coming. I could just make out his horrible grimace.
He moved past me and over towards Claire. Without any though I shouted out, "NO!"
Ethan turned to look at me and laughed. "Dear God, not another hero," he spat. "You saw what happened to the other one…" I knew he was talking about Charlie and I felt like beating the shit out of him, but I couldn't. "Do you want the same fate Seth?"
In one ear, out the other… in one ear, out the other. It didn't work. Damn it.
"Do you?" he asked angrily, forgetting about Claire and turning on me. He grabbed my shoulders hard and pulled me up. My head just about brushed the ceiling. "Sometimes, I just think you like the attention Cohen," he said before punching me hard across the face.
I heard Claire cry out, but I said nothing. I had gotten the crap beaten out of me before, this was no different. "Stop playing the hero. You aren't a freaking hero. You're a loser. You're a wimp. You are useless."
My blood began to boil. I put my hand up to my mouth and felt the blood. "You aren't worth the space you take up!"
BAM! Suddenly I couldn't control my anger again and I punched Ethan, hard. I couldn't believe that I nearly floored him. He staggered a back a few steps and then laughed. "You are an idiot," he said, wiping the blood away. I had caused him to bleed. I was a bit proud of myself.
I looked over at Claire, who was staring at me in shock. "SETH!" she shouted before I felt Ethan hitting me hard on the back. I fell down flat. I wasn't expecting that. He grabbed me and pulled me back up. How the scrawny little man was so abnormally strong still shocked me. I felt myself being pulled up to my feet.
"Say goodbye Claire," he said as I felt myself being pulled up through the hole and everything being plunged into darkness.
I hope she went through with it. She had to.
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The dinner didn't go as badly as I thought of it would have. 'Steve' as he liked to be called wasn't at all like Dr. Roberts. We actually got along quite well. He liked comic books, but I did most of the talking during that conversation. All of the girls seemed totally lost, but it was still really funny.
Too soon, it was time to leave. Far too soon. For once, I didn't want to stop talking to a parental figure. I even got tired talking to my own parents.
"So you'll come around again then Seth?" he asked me as I was standing at the door.
"Sure," I said. It was a more mature and caring Comic Book Club. I just couldn't stop smiling. Not only had I not totally screwed everything up, but it actually turned out quite nicely. "Nice to meet you Steve," I said, now not at all uncomfortable calling him by his first name.
"Nice to meet you too Seth…"
No. Things actually turned out all right.
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The next thing I saw, I was back in that room. That horrible, horrible room. They already strapped me into the chair and I was totally freaked out. I began shaking uncontrollably. My eyes rolled around so quickly in my eye sockets, I almost got dizzy. I coughed.
"So now the big and wonderful hero is weak and frail, eh?" he asked. I didn't respond, trying to get myself free. It was just something that I did, it didn't matter. I had to buy time for Claire.
She had to get out.
The bright light dimmed and I finally had a chance to look around. It was quite a small room, the ceiling was higher than it was in the little room, and it made it all seem so much bigger. I saw three or four men standing by the one entrance to the door, and then there was Ethan.
He was so close to me it was scary. Just staring at me. I stopped struggling. That was when I noticed all the needles sitting on a table to my left. Well, not needles, syringes. They must have been so old, so unsanitary.
My eyes followed Ethan as he reached over and grabbed one of them and then just looked at it. "Do you know what this is?" he asked, still looking at the clear substance in the syringe. He turned. A shot of fear ran through me.
He was going to inject me with it.
"Do you know what this is?" he asked me again. I slowly shook my head.
Ethan chuckled. "This… this will make it feel like every nerve ending in your body is on fire…"
"You can't do that," I said, trying to freak him out.
"Want to bet? The only problem is, this is completely experimental… it might just kill you…" he said, bringing the needle closer to my arm. I tried to move it, but I couldn't. All I could do was look away. I had never liked shots. Never ever. Needles just totally freaked me out. And then needles that only caused more pain and possibly death… I didn't even wanna think about it.
I had my eyes shut so tightly. I felt the needle going in and a quiet shout escaped me. I could feel it, there was no going back. Oh shit. Oh God. The fear was beginning to well up inside of me. I didn't want to be here.
I could feel the liquid being shot into my blood stream, and the needle being pulled out. I opened my eyes and looked over at the small hole that was now bleeding and chuckled.
It was all a hoax. He was lying. I felt all the fear left me. "Oh, give it time…" Ethan said with a smile, turning his back towards me. I sure as hell hoped that Claire had listened to me and was working her way out of here. I really hoped. She had to. Unless she was stupid.
"Five…" Ethan said. What the hell was he going on about? He looked at his wrist (where there is no watch).
"Four…"
"Three…" He was starting to freak me out now. Really freak me out.
"Two…"
"One…" Then it hit me. The most horrible pain I had ever felt in my entire life. I couldn't hold it in and screamed so loudly, I swear that anyone could have heard me, even the people at the caves, at the beach, even if they were on the other side of the island.
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I had run out of stamina, I had run out of tears. But I couldn't stop, the pain… the pain… it just never would stop. Even when I sworn it had stopped, I could still feel a dull pain.
Mentally, physically, spiritually I was exhausted. I was spent. As the drug me back, not worrying about anything. I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't… I couldn't move or anything. I felt like dying would be better than this. This wasn't fatal. This was worse.
I felt myself falling once again down into the hole, but I couldn't feel anything when I hit the ground except for the sudden realization that I was on the ground.
The light faded away, and everything was quiet. A little too quiet.
It even hurt my eyes to roll around in their sockets, but I did, and I was alone.
Completely and utterly alone.
A bit of relief flashed through me when I realized… Claire was gone.
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A/n: MWHAHAHAHA!!! Anyone who notices one Lost thing in the flashbacks and/or a 24 reference (possibly not in the flashbacks) gets a… cookie!!!
Harper's Pixie -- xD… I will make sure Ali knows. And yes, she is a she. HAHA. To tell you the truth, not even I know how he'll react.
The Pirate Illusionist -- Haha! Thanks! The O.C. is on uh… Fox on Wednesdays at 8…
DeuCe628 -- Haha
Pumpkin Muffin -- Haha.
Keks -- Haha. Don't worry about it, I am the exact same way! Haha!
alexis -- Pishy pish pish pish! haha! One of them… just one…
i-love-the-oc-and-smallville -- giggles
