Disclaimer: Still don't own any part of the OC, although I did get my S2 DVD's in the mail today. Yeah!
Author's Note: Thanks to Joey and Crash for the beta job. Part two of eight.
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Windex
A Seth POV Concerning the Season Two Finale
Part Two
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"SETH!"
Aunt Hailey screams at me from the open front door.
She comes charging at me as I pull up the driveway, cell phone in one hand, arms flapping up and down.
From the glare of my headlights she looks like a giant, agitated, flightless bird.
I glance over at Ryan and give him one of my We're In For It Now faces and wait for him to raise his eyebrows and say something completely obvious, like, 'Well, Hailey's pissed.' But of course, he doesn't answer, because I'm not even sure if Ryan knows where he is. His IV hand is caked with dried blood, the casted hand is bleeding and I'm gonna' need more napkins.
I wonder when McDonald's opens.
I get out of the car to meet Hailey because it seems, survival wise, way smarter than being trapped in the rent-a-car and Hales is a big girl and could clearly kick my ass.
I just feel safer on the open range.
"What is wrong with you?" She slaps at my arm. "Taking off like that, without telling me. Sandy called and I go to get you and you're gone."
I stand there and take my beating because I'm not really sure what to say anymore.
Nothing that wants to come out of my mouth seems appropriate after tonight's proceedings, high jinks, silly, wacky going-ons. Smart-ass is cute and quirky and clever in the kitchen, when Grandpa and Dad are fighting or when Ryan's trying to study or Mom is searching for her briefcase that I hid. But now, all with the dead grandpa, and the Kirsten in the rehab, and the attempted rape, and brother-on-brother ass kicking, and Marissa practicing her second amendment rights, I feel like my snarky card has been revoked and I don't really have any other means of communication to fall back on.
I'm verbally defunct—a man without a lexicon.
"God!" Hailey pushes the palms of her hands onto the side of her head. "What were you thinking, Seth? Has everyone lost their fucking minds tonight?"
Quite possibly, I'm not really completely clear on that.
Sure does feels like it, doesn't it?
Let's see, Trey lost his life, Ryan's losing his marbles, Marissa may lose her freedom, Dad lost Ryan.
Rent-a-car lost its window.
"Seth!"
Well, it's obvious what Aunt Hailey's losing, that would be her patience, with me, and she acts out this frustration by shoving her cell phone in my hand and issuing me the order of, "Call Sandy. He's frantic. The hospital can't find Ryan and your dad calls here, to check on you, and you're missing too and how do you think he must feel right now, Seth?"
Negligent? Clueless? Like Little Bo Peep who has lost her sheep?
"Do you know how I felt, Seth? Having to tell him I had no idea where you were?"
Stupid? Useless? Like the worst replacement for Mom…ever?
She grabs my arm and starts marching me away from the car. "Get in this house and call Sandy and tell him you are fine."
"Um," I put a stop to the movement, hold up a finger, and point to the passenger side of the car.
Hailey follows my lead, just like Lassie sniffing for Timmy in the well, and circles around the passenger side door.
"Oh my God, Ryan."
Ding, ding, ding.
We have a winner.
"Seth, what the hell happened to the window?"
If that's not proof that Hailey has been gone a long time and is totally ignorant, I'm not sure what is. 'Cause anybody else in my immediate universe? They wouldn't need to be asking what happened to the window.
Hailey disappears for a minute, telling me, "Stay there." And thanks for that, by the way, 'cause it's 4:30 in the morning and where the hell else am I going to go? She comes back with a kitchen towel and a white garbage bag and starts working on the broken window so we can get Ryan's door open.
"Seth, help me."
She's carefully picking away at the pieces of glass still hanging on for dear life to the window frame and I stand there, holding the garbage bag open, wanting to tell those poor little pieces of glass to just let it go, just give it up.
Stop clinging so ferociously.
You are doomed little pieces of leftover glass.
The frame that held you together is shattered.
And suddenly I jump when I hear a gunshot.
"Seth?" Hailey says my name nicely, like, much, much nicer than the previous five minutes and I realize that she has finished the window and is staring at me.
"What's wrong?"
"Did you hear that?" I ask.
"Hear what?" And she's definitely confused, which is confusing me, 'cause how could she not have heard that?
"The gunshot," I tell her.
Hailey's shaking her head. "Seth, there wasn't any gunshot."
"No?" I ask. And now I'm definitely confused. 'Cause there was a shot, I'm sure of it.
"I didn't hear a gun go off, Seth."
She seems certain of it, and somehow I'm fairly sure, based on the stories my mom tells when she's pissed at her sister, that my Aunt Hailey can recognize gunshots when she hears them, so I drop the whole gunshot thing as well as the garbage bag and wait for her to tell me what to do next.
The car door's already unlocked and Hailey gingerly opens it. "Ryan?"
"I think he passed out," I tell her.
"Jesus, Seth, he's a fucking mess."
Wow, and this woman didn't go to college. What a waste of a great mind.
"Seth." She shakes her head, looks at Ryan likes he's an escapee from the San Diego Wildlife Park. "We have to take him back to the hospital."
"What?" I blink at her. She finally, really, for the first time tonight, has got my full attention. "No, no, we can't do that. He doesn't want to be there. He's fine."
Ok, well, even I admit I know that's bullshit. Ryan's like a mile away from fine, maybe two miles. And yeah, the look Hailey's giving me is confirming that her bullshit-o-meter is accurately tuned as well.
She ain't buying what I'm selling.
"Seth. We're taking him back. Now. Before he wakes up. I'll drive."
I'm all about the getting in front of her. I block her path. She has to understand what I'm saying.
This is important.
"Listen, he doesn't want to be there. If you take him back he's just going to leave again or worse, they'll make him stay. And what, his brother just got shot by his girlfriend and you want to make him be strapped down in some hospital bed or drugged into submission? 'Cause he's not gonna' stay on his own free will."
Hailey's chewing on the inside of her cheek. I've got her thinking. I'm wondering if maybe dear old Aunt Hales hasn't been an unwilling guest of the medical profession once or twice in her travels.
I go in for the kill, tilt my head, use her full, formal title. "Please, Aunt Hailey? Help me with him, please?"
She crosses her arms and I relax a little. She'll help me. I know it. She's like my mom's evil twin, an irresponsible Ying to mom's conservative Yang. Yeah, Hailey may have a new job and she might look all glossy on the outside, but she's got a non-conformist streak in her that's gonna' claw its way out no matter what. Right now, I'm gonna' pet and stroke that little rebel yell like a Siamese cat.
"We can take better care of him, Hailey. They don't know Ryan. They don't care about what happened. They're just going to make him eat their food and follow their rules and be trapped in a room. That won't work for Ryan."
"Maybe he needs professional help, Seth. Maybe he needs actual medical care." She leans in close to me, raises her eyebrows and whispers, "Maybe he needs other kinds of help."
Ahh. I'm thinking Hailey has put two and two together and come up with a broken car window. And she needs to shut up right now because now she's got me second guessing myself. I didn't really think about the fact that Ryan might actually need to be in the hospital. Which now, in retrospect, seems completely ludicrous of me considering he spent the entire time I was there, at the hospital, when things first went down, unconscious.
Fuck, what am I doing?
Back, he needs to go back to the hospital right now.
I feel like a kidnapper.
"Seth?"
Definitely not Hailey's voice.
Great.
Ryan's awake.
And that voice. That voice isn't Ryan's. God, it's like Trey may have not choked the life out of Ryan but he sure as hell choked the voice. I need Ryan to sound like Ryan 'cause I'm having so much trouble right now recognizing any other part of him.
Hailey glances at me skeptically and I hold out my hand to her in a gesture that I'm hoping she'll interpret as "just wait a minute." I squat down next to Ryan's door and say…shit… what the hell should I say?
Think, think, think.
"Hey buddy, how're you doing?"
What the hell was that? That's the best I could come up with? Nice, Seth, very nice. I'm ready for the Lame Hall of Fame.
Ryan shifts his head, grimaces, squints and opens up his eyes just enough, to confirm, I have no doubt, that the nightmare isn't over.
"We're home?"
"Yeah," I say slowly, nod. "About that, Ryan, look…" I put my finger up to my nose, cause that's what I do sometimes when I'm trying to make a point. Whatever. It gives me confidence. Or it's a tick. That doesn't matter right now.
"Um, I think maybe I should take you back to the hospital because…you're very bloody and keep passing out and granted, I still haven't taken advanced Biology…"
STOP! I scream at myself. Just stop it. You can't talk like that anymore. You can't be rambling, verbal diarrhea Seth anymore. None of this is a joke. It's time to grow up.
But lookie there. Nothing I'm saying is going to matter much anyway because Ryan not listening. He's already struggling his way out of the car. He has his cast hand clutching the top of the car and the IV hand bracing itself on the dashboard and one leg already out of the vehicle.
It's Hailey, of all people, who jumps into action and practically pushes me aside and leans down and offers Ryan the support of her weight as he winces and flinches his way into a standing position.
Now that he's awake, it appears as though my aunt has abandoned all hope of cramming the toothpaste back into the tube. She motions with her head for me to prop Ryan up on his other side and between the two of us, we manage to make it, Ryan in a slow tow, to the front door.
He holds on to the doorframe, steadies himself, and shrugs off our support, although he shouldn't have, because despite the fact that the doorframe is immobile, Ryan's body is not. He's swaying back and forth, head down.
In the light of the house, he looks worse.
I'm starting to feel bad about thinking Hailey was an idiot for her previous summary of Ryan's appearance. He is a mess.
The hospital scrubs he's in are way too big for him. He looks like a five-year-old dressed up for Halloween.
He's barefoot. How could I have not noticed that before?
He's having trouble catching his breath.
There's blood in his hair, on his face and hands. I remind myself to check the cast when things have settled.
I try not to look at his neck, but the bruising is difficult to take my eyes off of.
Ryan shakes his head a little.
"I think they gave me something. I can't wake up."
I'm assuming "they" is the hospital and "something" is a one big fucking sedative. Maybe Dad will bring some home. We could all use a round.
"Come on, Ryan." Hailey places a hand on his back, gives him a little nudge, and we both go to put our shoulders back under his armpits so we can find a little more comfortable location than the front door.
Mom and Dad's bed seems the best solution. It's not like it's gonna' see any action anytime soon, but it's so very far away at the pace Ryan's setting. By the time we get there, Ryan is shaking and I'm thinking we should have settled for the couch. He whispers a request for an aspirin and Hailey and I just stand there staring at each other.
And the enormity of what I've been a conspirator tohits me gut center.
I don't even know if Ryan can safely have an aspirin. I didn't expect him to look and feel this bad. I didn't expect him to be this hurt. I expected him to be pissed off and brooding and even sad and I was prepared for more violence.
But physically he's not even ready to mourn.
"Lay down. Ryan." Hailey pulls down the covers, assists Ryan into a sitting position and then to his side. She dims the lights and motions for me to follow her out the door.
"Seth?" Ryan says my name, so soft, I almost don't hear him.
"Yeah." I kneel down at the bed. He must know that he sounds like shit or else it's killing him to talk. He seems to be happy settling for whispering.
"Is Marissa ok?"
The fog must be lifting and I'm assuming he's remembering everything now in disturbing clarity. He's too worn out to be acting out, but he's still Ryan Atwood. There are people other than himself to worry about. Maybe he can't fly at this moment, but the cape is on.
What am I suppose to say?
Is Marissa ok?
Gee, I don't know, Ryan. Your brother tried to rape her. She just witnessed you getting your ass beaten halfway to death. She killed Trey. Maybe "ok" is a little too much to shoot for. Maybe that bar is a little too high. Maybe right about now, probably not catatonic would be a good goal.
"My Dad's taking care of it, Ryan. He'll make sure no one messes with her."
And I realize, after I say it, that I really actually believe it. Because my Dad will take care of it. He always takes care of everything.
"I need to see her."
Well of course he does. But he's stuck in bed for now and if he thinks for one minute that I'm helping him out of it, so we can run around Newport at 5:00 a.m. looking for Marissa Cooper, then they gave him a bigger sedative than I thought.
"I'm not sure where she is, Ryan. But you know what, man? You should get some sleep. We'll hang out with the girls in the morning, ok?"
"I have to find my mom. I have to tell her about Trey."
Oh God, what am I doing?
I can't do this.
No, no, no, no.
Check the program, people. I'm the entertainment. I'm not the main show. Fuck my mom and her fucking vodka. She should be here, doing this. This is not my job.
Ryan and I have very distinct roles. I need, he gives. He gets angry, I back off. He gets a girl pregnant, I crack jokes.
I know he needs me to take it up a notch, to be more right now, to be more supportive, to be more mature, and I'm sure on some level of consciousness, it's killing him to even ask for help. So I should pull it together and fucking do this right or die trying.
"I'll help you find her, Ryan. As soon as you feel better, ok? And you know what, man? If you still don't feel good later, Summer and I will go find her for you."
He nods and seeing him lying there, falling asleep…thank God 'cause I'm just about at the end of my emotional support rope…it dawns on me that although I may idolize Ryan Atwood, I would never want to be him.
I would never, ever, want his life.
He's asleep; I can hear a strange little snore, which I assume, is complements of his now deceased brother's attempted strangulation.
Now that Ryan is starting to remember, I wonder if he'll recall, someday, that he asked me to see if Trey was alive and when I told him I wasn't sure, he screamed at me, "Just fucking check for a pulse, Seth." And when I did, I got blood all over my hands and I knew there wasn't going to be a pulse but I kept getting more blood on my hands, because I didn't have the courage to turn around and tell Ryan his brother was dead and when I finally felt like I was going to vomit if I stayed near Trey one more second, I stood up, and by then, Ryan had already passed out.
"Seth?"
Hailey is calling for me through the door.
I look one more time at Ryan, sleeping, before I stand up.
When I join Aunt Hailey in the hallway, she hands me the phone.
"You call your father right now, Seth."
No argument this time, Hales.
Be happy to.
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To be continued...