Author's note: Wow, I opened up my e-mail and was shocked anyone reviewed at all, and even more surprised that they were positive. Big thanks to those who did. I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, it's sort of a filler until I decide what to do, I've got about three different scenarios I'd love to put them in, but can only pick one. Oh, in my little alternative universe Trey never came around. Things are complicated enough without him.
Summer parked her car outside the Family Planning Clinic, taking a deep breath and looking over to Seth. "So, um, you ready?" she asked nervously, biting her bottom lip.
She'd ended up telling him the night before. They were laying in Seth's bed watching another one of his stupid little cartoons that she secretly sort of liked when she'd just blurted it out. "CohenI'mPregnant," she'd told him in one breath, breaking the silence and leaving Seth to decipher what exactly it was that she'd just told him. She brought her hand up to her mouth, nervously biting a perfectly manicured nail.
It took him what was probably a few minutes to respond, but for her it seemed like hours. "Um, uh, what did you say?" he asked in disbelief, no way was this happening. Not right now. They were going into their senior year of high school, they'd already been through this with Theresa last summer, what the hell were they supposed do to? What was he supposed to do with this piece of information?
"We have options..." she told him softly, trying not to cry. Damn hormones, it wasn't supposed to go this way. She didn't expect him to, like, jump up and throw a party or anything, but she didn't expect this either. She just sort of thought maybe things would be okay?
Seth just nodded his head, still in a daze. "Uh, yeah, okay," he replied, his voice void of any emotion. He needed to snap out of this, be there for her, but he couldn't seem to do it.
They hadn't talked much after that, both just stared at the television trying to decide what to say. Seth didn't know what to do except hold her hand and atleast try to go to sleep. Of course that didn't happen, but he got up with Summer the next morning anyways. He watched her as she got dressed, trying to see any signs of life in her stomach, worrying that someone may find out when she looked back at him, catching him stare and blushing. "Stop. Look, this doesn't have to be a big deal. I made an appointment, I can go take care of this." Truthfully she was trying to convince herself as much as she was him.
This was a big deal. She was 17 years old and he was 18, there was no way they were ready for any of this. She just wished somebody would tell her what to do.
"Summer Roberts?" the receptionist called, leading her and Seth back into Dr. Goldberg's office. How embarrassing, she felt like everyone was staring at her, even though there were only two other couples in the waiting room and neither looked familiar. She probably should've made this appointment out of Newport, but she probably should have done a lot of things differently. Like not get knocked up... She shook the thoughts out of her head, reaching for Seth's hand and heading into the small room. "Dr. Goldberg will be with you shortly," the receptionist told them with a reassuring smile.
Seth couldn't help but think back to a little over a year ago when he and Ryan had took Theresa here. He wished Ryan was here with him now, that he could talk to him about how this was when he went through this all with Theresa, but he was fairly certain Summer wasn't ready to tell anybody, and he wasn't going to be the one to break the news.
"Are you nervous?" he asked her softly, knowing it was a stupid question, but he hated it being so quiet. Of course she was nervous.
She nodded her head, looking around the room. She hated seeing the doctor, other people touching her just sort of freaked her out. Especially when it came to someone else down there. She shuddered just thinking about it and Seth put his hand on her shoulder.
"Hey, Cohen? Thanks for coming here with me."
As much as it scared him to be here with Summer, he knew it'd be even worse without him here for her. It wasn't like he could just not go, she was sort of having his baby after all. Or maybe not, maybe they were just getting all worked up over nothing. Probably not, but he tried to keep that thought in his mind as they waited for the doctor.
"Ms. Roberts, I'm Dr. Goldberg," the doctor said, coming into the room and interrupting her train of thought. "And you are?" he asked, shaking Seth's hand.
"Um, Seth Cohen. Her boyfriend, the father?" he answered unsure of what exactly he was in this situation, but the doctor seemed to accept the answer.
"Very well, Summer, if you could just change into this gown that'd be great, I'm going to just go grab your information from my receptionist and we're going to do a sonogram. I can have you out of here in 30 minutes," he told her with a smile, handing her the gown and walking out of the room.
She took a deep breath, standing up and slipping out of her dress to put the gown on as quickly as possible, suddenly very self conscious.
"Nothing I haven't seen before," Seth joked, trying to make her smile. He pulled her down onto his lap, kissing the top of her head. "We'll be fine. Maybe I can ask the doctor if we can take this lovely frock here home? A souvenir?"
Summer smacked his head, leaning back into him. "Haha, don't you think it's a little early to joke?"
"But that's what Cohen's do, we make jokes at inappropriate times. It's our charm, you see, it's what made you fall for me."
"Oh really, I thought it was your money," she suggested, relaxing a bit.
"Ouch, that hurts right here, Sum," he said, taking his hands to his heart when there was a light knock on the door. "Come in," he called to the doctor, pulling Summer a bit closer.
"Alright Summer, if you can just take a seat on the examination table that'd be great," he instructed, setting the sonogram machine up as Summer got situated. He hooked it up to her, adjusting the monitor and moving around a bit. "Do you see that?" he asked, pointing to what Seth thought looked like a blob. "That's your baby," he told them with a smile. "Now there are always options and I want the two of you to think all of them through very carefully, you're going to have to make a big decision and I'll be giving you some pamphlets-"
"That's fine," Seth said, cutting him off. And somehow he knew that he was right, it was going to be fine. Somehow they'd make it.
Summer got into the passenger seat at Seth's insistence that he was driving her, buckling her seatbelt and putting the pamphlets she had received into her purse. "Don't think you're going to start driving my car or anything, this is a one-time thing," she warned him, flicking the radio on.
"But Summy, Dr. Goldberg told me I'd need to take extra care of you," he reminded her with a goofy grin, to which he received a punch in the arm from Summer. "Or on second thought we might need someone to take care of me."
"Cohen, this is serious. We're talking about a whole nother person. Can we do this? You can barely take care of yourself."
He shrugged, unsure of what to say. "I don't know. But we can try, I'm sure we won't fuck it up too bad," he said, noticing the glare she was shooting at him. "Look, Summer, I really don't know. I think we can but this is up to you, alright?"
She hate that he was like this, sometimes she wished he could just be an ass for like a minute and make her do what he said. "Alright," she agreed, nodding her head.
"You want to go to the Crab Shack to get some lunch?"
"Yeah, that sounds really good right about now."
Two hours, three orders of lobster rolls and four hamburgers later, the two had finished eating. They managed to take their minds off their little situation for awhile atleast, and were just trying to enjoy themselves like they'd been attempting to do all summer. Everyone tried so hard to be normal at the Cohen household, but it just wasn't the same without Kirsten.
Every week everyone would go visit her, including Summer and even Marissa, Julie and Jimmy, who'd seem to have gotten back together, on occasion. It'd become sort of a ritual, they'd stop at In N' Out on the way and get Kirsten a double hamburger, she wouldn't admit it but they all knew the food at rehab wasn't that great. Seth would burn her a new CD, usually introducing her to one of his favorite bands, he was still working on getting her into Death Cab, and Ryan was in charge of bringing DVDs for the portable DVD player they'd gotten her. Summer loaded up on magazines, Riviera, Cosmo, Glamour, Vogue, the usual, and would occasionally bring photos she'd gotten of the guys. Julie, ever the thoughtful one, would bring hydrangeas to brighten up the place, she'd actually talked to the management about painting Kirsten's room a different color because "there was a negative air" about the icky beige color. They all knew Kirsten being there was for the best, but that didn't keep them from counting the weeks until she got out. Right now it was set at four. But now with this latest news, Summer was actually beginning to appreciate the fact that they had some time before she would return, before they would have to tell her. That could be her excuse, that she wanted Kirsten to be home before they told anyone.
"Let's just walk around for a bit, I ate way too much and feel huge," Summer suggested, unbuttoning her jeans and taking Seth's hand. Seth agreed way too easily, causing her to stop and look at him. "Hey, what are you thinking about?" she asked, growing a little concerned.
"Captain Oats is so used to being an only child and I just don't know how he's going to take any competition, he gets upset very easily and his hooves hurt, you know," Seth trailed off, continuing to walk.
"Great, I'm going to have two kids to look after."
"So we're really going to do this?"
Summer stopped once again, this time in front of a store window, looking in at the display of baby clothes they had set up. "Yeah. We really are."
"Good," Seth replied, happy with the answer. "Because I was thinking we should get cracking on baby names..."
"Don't even start Cohen, we're not naming our baby Darth Vader."