Okay, so, I know I haven't updated this story for like a year, but better late than never I guess. I don't even have an excuse for taking this long. Things just kinda got in the way and then The OC season 2 started over here and I got all inspired again. Hopefully you'll all be kind and review. I suggest you read the first four chapters again, cos, lets face it, you're all definitely gonna have forgotten what happened.

Seth looked out of his bedroom window. His ordered little world ended at the door to that room. Beyond that things tended to get a little complicated. And Seth wasn't brilliant at dealing with complicated. When he had to deal with complicated he tended to spaz out, just a little. He pushed the window open, feeling the breeze wash over him instantly. He could hear the sea from where he was and it calmed him. Not that he wasn't calm. He was just confused.

The people in his life made things more difficult. His parents were great as parents went but they lived these weird lives with a whole ton of conflict, between his dad and his grandad; between his mum and pretty much everyone. It was hard enough for him to handle the tension in his own life without handling his parents as well. And Ryan was a whole load of complex thoughts and emotions and that was without his past in Chino. But Summer was quite possibly the most bizarre. She was one of the most popular girls in school, girls wanted to be her and guys wanted to be with her. And she exuded this personality which made it hard to believe that she was anything other than the popular girl. But Summer wasn't stupid, and she thought about things, a lot. And she was forcing him to very quickly reassess his opinions of the other rich kids at school. He had always had the most enormous crush on her but it had always been a crush on the image of Summer. He had never had any idea that there were quite so many complex issues buried beneath her calm, cool exterior. He had learnt a lot today. Summer was not what she had seemed, she was troubled and she wasn't happy at home and she needed a friend more than another admirer. It was kind of momentous, he was leaving a part of his life that he had valued for so long behind him. He was moving on from the teenage obsessions that had once dictated who he was. Comic books and computer games and crushes on the hottest girl in school, all of them were part of who he had been. And although he was determined to keep going with the comic books and computer games, his crush on Summer would be one of the casualties of learning.

'Summer, you coming?' Marissa called up the stairs. She had suggested, to take Summer's mind of her family that they go to the Cohen's that night. They both needed a break from their respective families, both of them taking their toll.

'Yeah, you go over without me and I'll be there in a minute.'

'Okay,' Marissa replied to the call which floated down the stairs. 'If you're not there in five minutes I'm coming back and dragging you there myself,' she yelled as an afterthought.

Summer smiled as she walked into Marissa's room. She stepped across the carpet towards her bag and pulled out a top. She had been in and out of cars and classrooms all day and the outfit she had been wearing was beyond stinky. She pulled off her vest top and slipped a tshirt on, ruffling up her hair as she did.

She wasn't entirely sure why she was so nervous about walking down the driveway to the Cohen's house. It wasn't like she had ever cared what Seth Cohen thought of her, she hadn't ever cared about him and she was pretty sure that she had made that perfectly clear over the years. But the past day had been more enlightening than most. Cohen had stopped being Cohen and had started being Seth. He had become a real person in her eyes. It wasn't like he had been some kind of sub-human before, she had just never paid him all that much attention. That wasn't strictly true though. She had always noticed him. In the circles in which she moved and the world in which she lived he was this beacon. He was one of the only people who didn't give a damn and let everyone else know it too. He liked things because they appealed to him, not because everyone else liked them too. He was genuine, a quality seriously lacking at Harbor.

She pulled on a pair of dark blue jeans, opting for comfort over fashion. She smiled wryly. That was exactly what Seth wouldn't have done. Between fashion and comfort there was no contest and yet he still managed to look like he had got dressed with the light on. She frowned as she recognized the thoughts running through her mind. She had experienced them before but these ones were about Seth Cohen. She slumped onto the bed, deep in thought. She was having those kinds of thoughts about Seth Cohen, a guy that she claimed to despise most of the time.

'What is wrong with me?' she muttered to herself as she pulled on a pair of flip flops and grabbed her bag. She slung it over her shoulder before exiting Marissa's room.

Their eyes met across the room the instant she walked through the front door. It was like she had some kind of radar that pinpointed Ryan's location no matter where they both were, or how many people were in the room with them. She smiled as she tried her hardest to pay any attention to Kirsten and Sandy as they exchanged pleasantries with her. After a while she looked around her with a frown. Everyone else had left. She hadn't even noticed.

He watched her every movement as she walked across the floor towards him, her shoes making a noise that neither of them could hear, so lost in each other were they. He looked down as her hand grabbed his, her fingers entwining themselves around his own. She pulled him into the corner of the room, away from the entrance to the kitchen where the sounds of dinner being prepared provided a quiet hum of background noise.

She pressed her lips against his, maintaining her grip on his hand as she raised the other one to his face, brushing her fingers across his skin. She moved closer, their bodies pressing together, the embrace intense, passionate, the kiss deepening with every passing second.

Eventually they pulled apart, their breathing shaken up to say the least. He looked into her eyes from beneath his lashes. She seemed somewhat surprised at her own actions, shocked that she had taken things as far as they had gone. She smiled at him, her face relaxed, the expression open and happy.

They were both shocked out of their reverie as they heard knocking at the door and they pulled apart, Ryan regretfully leaving Marissa behind as he walked towards the front door. He opened it and looked down at Summer. She looked nervous again, like she didn't feel welcome. It was a new look but one he was getting to know. She hadn't seemed quite herself all day.

'Hey,' he said, stepping aside as she walked past him into the room.

'You have lipgloss on your mouth,' she announced, pointedly looking at Ryan and then Marissa, a knowing expression evident in her eyes. 'And, with that embarrassing revelation I'm gonna go help in the kitchen.'

She began to walk off but was intercepted by Kirsten.

'Dinners actually ready so you can all go through while I get Seth.'

'I'll go do that Mrs Cohen,' Summer offered. She wasn't quite sure what she had walked in on but she had a feeling that Ryan and Marissa were going to need a little alone time together.

'I'll leave you two to…finish…whatever,' she declared as she walked towards the stairs, taking them two at a time. She was happy for them both, they made a cute couple and they seemed really into each other, but she didn't have a boyfriend, didn't even have a nearly successful love life and seeing Ryan and Marissa all happy and in love with each other was going to make her vomit or kill them, her mood could go either way.

It was only when she reached the top of the stairs and saw the hallway spread out before her that she realised quite what she had agreed to. Fetching Seth from his room implied that she would have to be alone with him. That hadn't been part of the plan for the evening. She sighed deeply before walking forward. One of the more practical problems with her helpful suggestion was that she had absolutely no idea where Seth's room was. There were way too many doors for her to check them all, she was far too lazy for that kind of exertion of effort.

Her shoulders drooped as she walked forward, listening intently for sounds of life. Her ears pricked up at the sound of footsteps from the other side of one of the doors. She walked towards it and pressed her ear against the cool wood. Having ascertained that someone was in there she took a step back and knocked sharply.

She waited, a frown appearing on her face as nothing happened. She knocked again, to an equally dull conclusion. Her hand reached out and she grabbed the handle of the door, twisting it until she heard a satisfying click. The door swung open slowly revealing Seth's remarkably tidy room. Summer peered in. The action was two-fold. Firstly, she had to find Seth so he could eat food like everyone else (although given his beanpole physique she could easily have convinced herself that he didn't eat anything, ever); and secondly, she was really interested to see what kind of world Seth inhabited. She had known the Cohen's for years, they were a wealthy family in Newport, actively if reluctantly involved in all the social events. But Seth was somewhat of a mystery wrapped up inside a conundrum. He never attended said social events and the only time Summer saw him was at school, reading comic books like the true geek that he was. Other than that she knew nothing about him and, despite her attempts to absolve herself of her curiosity she couldn't stop wondering.

She stepped into the room slowly, everything gradually being revealed to her. Posters adorned the walls, some of them of bands she liked; there was the requisite state of the art computer; stacks of CD cases were neatly ordered into piles. As she moved in farther she took in the bed and its occupant. Lying on top of the covers, reading a book, headphones in his ears, the tinny sound of loud music becoming clear was Seth Cohen. It was the first time she had ever seen him look truly at ease. He was usually being neurotic, or overtly funny (not that she minded the humour), or Cohenish.

She watched as he turned his head towards her, the shock in his eyes at finding her in his room obvious. She waited as he pulled the headphones from his ears and switched the music off at the source.

'Summer?' he asked, confused.

'Cohen,' she answered, managing to maintain some semblance of her façade.

'What are you doing in my room?'

'I came up here to tell you that dinner's ready but I was distracted by you. Is that an actual book that you're reading? Cos I thought you were addicted to comic books in that incredibly geeky way that you have.'

He pushed himself from the bed, leaving the book behind and looked down at Summer.

'Much as I love the banter thing cos you know, that never gets old can we please head downstairs.'

'So, you do actually eat?'

'My moms cooking? Never. That stuff'll kill you. So it's a good thing we're eating take out tonight.'

She stared up at his brown eyes before raising her eyebrows and turning. She was definitely not happy about the weird feeling in the pit of her stomach.