Title: Standing on the Edge of Me
Author: Karleen
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Warner Brothers. I do not own The OC or any song (if there were) used in this fanfic. This was just written for fun. This is a short chapter but condensed with information.

Chapter 7 :: Quarter Passed Five

It was a quarter passed five in the morning and the phone rang.

"Kirsten?" She asked sleepily then she eyes grew wide opened after a couple of minutes. "What?!? " She said as she just found out her worst fears came true, Seth got into a car accident. She carried Sam out carefully into the car and drove the eerily quiet streets to Newport General Hospital.

The police found the incident a couple minutes later. They tracked the emergency phone call to the destination of the accident. When the ambulance arrived, he was not breathing and had no pulse - he was clinically dead. The drunk driver died on the scene. The medics were able to restore Seth's breathing and heartbeat though, and headed straight to the hospital.

Seth's wallet was discovered in the car, but his driver's license still listed his parent's house as his current address, the thing he had not bothered to change. The nurse would only tell Sandy and Kirsten to get to the hospital as soon as they possibly could. Kirsten called Summer and told her to get to the hospital immediately.

Summer was panicked and that was to say the least. Sam was a little frightened of how her mother was acting. She'd never seen Summer as scared as she was. As soon as they arrived at the hospital parking lot, she found Sandy and Kirsten before they entered the building. Sandy helped Summer and carried Sam as they were directed to the Grief Room.

As Kirsten, Summer, Sandy and Sam sat down, the doctor approached them and Sandy got up.

"My name is Dr. Michaels, are you Seth Cohen's father?" The doctor asked.

"Yes, I am. Sandy Cohen." He said as he shook the doctor's hand.

"Mr. Cohen. Your son..."he paused as he looked at the chart that he held. "He has a serious traumatic brain injury, a broken pelvis and his body is slowly shutting down. He survived the surgery and that's the good news. However, he is unable to breathe on his own. We are going to have to keep him on a respirator and feed him through a tube for two weeks until further notice."

At his state of coma, he only responded to painful stimulus. The nurses had to pinch and twist the flesh of Seth's upper chest every forty five minutes around the clock, just to get a reaction and be certain that he was not slipping deeper into coma.

When Chrismukkah crept around them, Summer made sure she was by his side. She even took a leave of absence from work for the remainder of the year. Sandy and Kirsten offered to help her with Sam while she was at the hospital looking after Seth. She spoke to him everyday despite his unresponsiveness. She couldn't help but cry. It was a painful sight to see Seth hooked up with IVs and the respirator. She couldn't help but blame herself for what happened. It broke her heart knowing that if she hadn't said what she said at the party, Seth wouldn't have gotten into this freak accident. He wouldn't be in a coma. He would've found out that she was pregnant.

She found out a couple of days before the Chrismukkah party, but she didn't want to tell him yet. She wanted it to be a surprise, she wanted to tell him for his present. They never got to that part.

"I don't want to live without you..." She whispered as she drifted off to sleep next to him.

to be continued...