A/N: Thanks so much for your lovely comments on the last chapter! I'm glad you liked it even though there wasn't any Summer in it. I promise this is never ever gonna happen again!
theocroxxx: OMG yes I saw the latest episode and I was crying too! That was the saddest episode ever, and I know now that Summer crying breaks my heart! I just hope they'll make up real soon!
Please R/R. I might update sooner if you do ;)
Sweet Home ChicagoThe next day, Seth woke up early, and he was surprised that he had been able to find some sleep after he had been laying awake for almost three hours after having gone to bed. And he didn't even feel tired, which was a thing that surprised him even more.
After a few minutes he had managed to go down to the kitchen and poured himself some coffee when he heard Ryan's voice behind him.
"You're up early."
Seth spun around and frowned, shaking his head. "I'm up early?" he asked and shook his head. "What about you? Don't you have, like, a home where you should be right now?"
Ryan smirked and held out his coffee mug for Seth to fill it. "Kim always goes for breakfast with her parents and sisters on Sundays." He explained. "And I come here."
Seth frowned. "Since when?"
"Since always." Ryan replied and shrugged.
Seth sighed and got himself some cereal while Ryan took out the cereal dishes and the milk, and he smiled. No matter how long the two of them were separated throughout the year, when they met at their parents' house everything was like it had been back in their High School days.
Seth put the cereal down on the counter and sank on the bar chair next to Ryan, sipping from his coffee. "So… since when are the parents and Gramps acting like that…" he mimicked the gazes the "adults" had given each other the day before, "… with all those glares and gazes and stuff?"
Ryan sighed and shrugged. "Don't know what you mean."
Seth rolled his eyes and put his mug down. "Like this, buddy…" he repeated the gaze and Ryan stifled a laugh because Seth looked like he was going insane with his eyes wide open and his tongue half hanging out of his mouth.
"Your parents have never looked like that." Ryan said and shoved a spoon full of cereal in his mouth. "But I know what you mean now."
Seth nodded and looked at Ryan expectingly and Ryan blinked at him. "What do you want me to say now?"
"Dude, I wanna know why the parents are acting like that. With the staring and stuff. Is anything wrong with the Newport Group? Are my parents getting a divorce? Is gramps going to jail?"
Instead of answering, Ryan just stared at Seth blankly and Seth rolled his eyes. "Don't say so many things at once, man, you make my head all dizzy."
"Don't be so pissed man, I have no idea why your parents are acting like that."
Seth bit the insides of his cheeks. "Really?"
Ryan squirmed in his seat. "Well, the only thing I know is… it has something to do with your grandpa."
Seth poked Ryan with his finger triumphantly. "Ha! So you do know something!"
Ryan held up his hands in apology. "Yeah but that's all I know, I swear. And it's just a guess so I could be totally wrong."
Seth nodded and sighed. "I wonder if they're gonna tell me before I leave."
"By the way, when are you leaving?"
Glancing at the clock Seth counted. "My plane leaves at six-thirty, so I have like… 8 hours from now." He sighed. "And I promised Summer to stop by at her house and get her some of her stuff."
Ryan grinned. "You and Summer's dad… should be interesting. Need someone to drive you there?"
"That's why I told you the story in the first place, actually."
Shaking his head, Ryan sighed. "I'm glad when you're gonna be able to walk like a normal person again."
Seth nodded. "Tell me about it, buddy."
The eight hours Seth had counted during breakfast flew by incredibly fast, and before Seth even realized it he found himself standing in the waiting hall of Newport airport again, this time his whole family gathered around him to wish him a good flight. The visit at Summer's house had been very unspectacular, since Summer's dad and step-mother weren't at home. So Seth had only had a little chat with the housekeeper who had handed him a big pink suitcase Seth hated from the very first moment.
As if it wasn't embarrassment enough to be dependent from a pair of crutches with a huge cast around your leg, no, he would have to hand a Chicago taxi driver a pink suitcase. He just hoped that Summer was grateful for his effort, because if she wasn't he was going to keep the clothes that were in the suitcase. Not that he had any use for the them – Amy had nearly twice of Summer's height – but he just felt like taking revenge.
When the last call for his flight had been made, Seth accepted the hugs and nice words from all of his family members. Lilly was the first one to jump into his arms… or better, to jump on his crutches and made him almost fall. When the little girl realized that her brother had almost stumbled, she giggled. "Sorry." She said and smiled innocently. "I told you you're funny."
"Very funny, Lil. You made me almost fall!"
Lilly waved and shrugged. "Don't be a baby, Seth." She replied and everyone started to laugh. Seth shook his head and proceeded to hug his father and Ryan before he finally arrived at his mother who smiled.
Seth frowned when he saw some tears glistening in his mother's eyes and he tilted his head. "Everything okay?" he asked and laid a comforting hand on his mother's shoulder.
Kirsten swallowed and nodded and placed a hand on Seth's face. "Time just flies when you're here."
Seth smiled and nodded too. "I know." He leant forward to hug his mother and was surprised when he felt how tight Kirsten was clinging on to him. "Mom? Can you promise me something?" he asked and Kirsten nodded.
"Whatever you want, sweetie."
"Whatever problem you have with grandpa… solve it. You seemed quite unhappy this weekend." Seth whispered into Kirsten's ear, and if the two of them weren't still in a hug Seth would have been able to see how hard his mother was fighting tears right now.
Kirsten cleared her throat and shoved her son away, forcing a smile. "Of course, sweetie. We'll be fine."
Seth nodded and smiled back, trying hard to hide his worry about his mother's strange behavior. "So will I."
"Hey Seth, say hi to Amy and Summer from us. And tell the girls next time we wanna see them too!" Sandy said and patted his son on the back, and Seth nodded. He was surprised how long his family had achieved to actually not talk about Summer, but now, in the minute he left them, the subject had been brought up eventually. Seth bet that his father might have had exploded if he hadn't mentioned Summer once.
"Sure Dad, I'll say hi."
The family went quiet when a woman's voice told all passengers that this was officially the last call to get the flight and Seth took a few steps back and waved. "I'll call you when I'm home." He said and proceeded to the gate to board the plane, his family waving and shouting their goodbyes after him.
"Amy? I'm home!"
Seth kicked the door of his apartment open with one of his crutches and peeked inside to find the apartment all dark and empty. Well, empty in like, without any person in it, and he sighed. Schlepping the two suitcases inside, he switched the lights on and went into the living room, falling down on the couch. In front of him on the couch table he found a small note from Amy that said that she went out with some of her friends from her Spanish class. It also told him not to worry or stay up because it could get very late.
Seth shook his head and sighed. That was nice. He had just come back from his trip to California and Amy didn't even bother to ask how the trip was or if he had some news or stuff like that. AND she didn't even care how he had managed to get off the plane or how he had picked up his suitcases from the luggage carousel and had carried them into a taxi with a cast and two crutches. No, it was important that she had her fun.
Rubbing his eyes, Seth decided not to waste his energy to be angry or disappointed by Amy and he yawned. After the flight, his head had finally ended to try to process all of the events of the past 48 hours, and he felt himself drifting off into a very comfortable sleep. Just when he was about to drift off completely, the urging ringing of the phone made him jump a little, and his heart started to race from the shock of being woken up again.
He fumbled for the telephone that sat on a small table next to the couch and mumbled something in it that was supposed to sound like hello or something like that.
"Seth?"
"Hey Lil. How are ya?" Seth said and smiled when he heard his sister's tiny voice at the other end of the line.
"Not so good." Lilly said and sniffed, a combination that let all of Seth's alarm systems come to life.
"What's wrong, little one?" he asked.
"Mommy and Daddy are mad at each other." Lilly replied in a whiny voice.
Seth frowned and leant his head onto the back of the couch, closing his eyes. From what he had seen during his visit on the weekend of Lilly's birthday these news didn't surprise him. "Do you know what happened?"
"Nah. I had to go play in my room."
"I'm sure it's nothing bad, pumpkin-head. You know, when you and me are in a fight Mom and Dad always leave the room."
The other end of the line was dead silent after Seth's bad attempt to cheer his sister up. He opened his eyes again and frowned. "Lilly?"
A sniff. "Ya?"
The sniffing thing drove Seth almost insane. He hated it to see his little sister hurt, no matter what a big pain in the ass she could be sometimes. "Don't cry. I promise you they'll be nice to each other very soon."
"Ryan said that too." Lilly replied, her voice still teary.
Seth smiled a little and nodded to himself. Obviously Ryan had the same problem than him. They both liked being overprotective with their little sister. "See? Your two brothers tell you everything's fine. So you have to believe us." He said and smirked.
"Ya but it's really really bad today. And I saw Mommy cry."
Seth let out a deep sigh. From the very first moment he had seen his mother during his visit to California he knew that something had been wrong – it obviously still was. And now Lilly had seen her crying... Seth didn't remember the last time he had seen his mother cry. She hadn't even cried at his grandmother's funeral because she had been heavily medicated back then to better cope with the shock of losing her mother.
"Seth?"
"Hm? Yeah, I'm here." He replied and sighed again. "Listen pumpkin-head, if it's really something bad, Mom and Dad will tell you. I know that they will. Cuz they would never keep anything important from us. Okay?"
Another sniff. "Okay."
Seth smiled a little. "Maybe they just sent you to your room to clean it up. You have to admit that you have quite a mess in there."
"I DON'T!" Lilly answered, shocked by this – to her – untrue statement of her brother.
"Yeah well, if you say so." Seth replied and closed his eyes. "Listen, Lilly, it's really late here in Chicago and I want to sleep. Are you gonna be okay?"
Lilly sniffed once again. "Uh-huh." Her voice trembled and Seth's heart felt like breaking. Whatever was going on over there in Newport, he hated his parents for making Lilly witness that something was wrong. You just didn't do that to a six-year-old girl.
He sighed. Well, you didn't do that to a 22-year-old half-grown up either.
"You can call me again tomorrow, if you want to. Or I'll call you?" he suggested and reached over to the nightstand for his painkillers. After a whole weekend of moving around and being pressed between the two seats of an airplane his leg felt like falling off.
"Oki." Lilly replied and sniffed once again.
"Good. So please don't cry anymore, okay? You've done nothing wrong, and I'm sure that whatever it was why Mom and Dad sent you to your room was nothing serious. So will you be happy for me again?" Seth asked and smiled to himself.
"Yes." Lilly replied. "For you."
"Good girl. I wish you a goodnight. And I'll talk to you tomorrow."
"Promise?"
Seth smiled again. "Promise. Telephone pinky swear."
Lilly giggled a little. This was good. To hear his sister laughing again. "Goodnight, Seth. Oh and say goodnight to Summer, too!"
Before Seth could reply, Lilly had hung up on him. He stared at the receiver in his hand and frowned at Lilly's last comment.
His sister knew that he wasn't with Summer anymore, right? He had told her only a few hours ago, when he had put her into bed. She couldn't possibly have forgotten about that, could she?
The longer he thought about the two women in his life the more Seth felt the urge to talk to someone about his concern that Lilly and her phone call had caused him, and since his girlfriend was busy partying there was only one person he felt like talking to now.
So Seth took one of the pain killers, swallowed it down with some of the water that was on his night stand and switched his laptop open, logging into the chatting program.
And just like he had predicted it, she was there.
Cpt. Oats: "Hey, Sleepy Eye! Wake up I need to talk!"
A shrill "pling" woke Summer up from her dreams and she smiled to herself and rubbed her eyes, yawning during the process.
Princess Sparkle: „Cohen, what do you want from me? It's the middle of the night!"
She couldn't help but to tease him like that. She had told him before that she would be online, waiting for him to come when he arrived from California, and there she was. She just didn't want him to think that her life sucked that much that the only thing that filled out her spare time was to wait for him to come online and chat with her.
Cpt. Oats: „Come on, I know you've been waiting for me! For what other reason would you stay up so long?"
Princess Sparkle: „I wasn't planning on it. I just fell asleep in front of the screen."
Self-defence just needed to be.
Cpt. Oats: "Right. I could as well kid myself here."
Princess Sparkle: "Go ahead."
Cpt. Oats: "Haha. So... do you have a minute?"
Princess Sparkle: "Now that you've woken me... yeah."
The chat screen fell silent for a while and Summer wondered if it was Seth who had been falling asleep in front of the computer screen this time. Just as she was about to ask what was wrong, Seth's answer appeared on her screen.
Cpt. Oats: "So... Lilly called me."
Princess Sparkle: "Aww that little cutie-pie. She must miss you a lot since you've arrived here only a few hours ago."
Cpt. Oats: "She's not a cutie-pie. She's a spoiled brat."
Princess Sparkle: "Just like her brother."
Cpt. Oats: "Summer, please."
At that serious comment, Summer knew that something was wrong. It wasn't at all like Seth to not joke about something. After all, Seth was a Cohen – and if Summer had learned something over the years, it was that Cohens made jokes at every possibility that was given – even if they were not matching for the situation.
Princess Sparkle: "Cohen? Are you still there?"
Cpt. Oats: "Yes."
Princess Sparkle: "Well, I can't help you if you don't tell me what's going on."
Cpt. Oats: "Lilly cried."
Princess Sparkle: "So? She's six years old, she's a girl – that's what we do."
Cpt. Oats: "Yeah but she like... really cried."
Summer hesitated a little before typing her answer into the screen.
Princess Sparkle: "What happened?"
Cpt. Oats: "Mom and Dad had a fight. And they sent her to her room."
Princess Sparkle: "Well, but that's normal. Everybody fights. And they didn't want her to witness it, so they sent her upstairs."
It took Seth some time to type his answer back, just as if it took him some overcoming to say what he was about to say.
Cpt. Oats: "She said she saw Mom crying."
Princess Sparkle: "Cohen, she's a six year old girl. She might be overreacting."
Cpt. Oats: "You think?"
Princess Sparkle: "I don't know, I'm not a visionary. But children over-dramatize everything. Actually, when I was younger and my Dad took my favorite Barbie away I thought I was just about to die."
Cpt. Oats: "Please tell me you did not pretend to be dead to get the freakin' Barbie back."
Princess Sparkle: "You bet I did! I looked at my father, told him if I didn't get my Barbie back in like right now I might die. And I was crawling up on the floor right in front of him... you know, for emphasize."
Cpt. Oats: "Did you get the Barbie back?"
Pause.
Pause.
Pause.
He didn't really need to know that her plan back then had sucked. Big time.
Cpt. Oats: "Summer?"
Princess Sparkle: "Hm?"
Cpt. Oats: "Did you get the Barbie back?"
Princess Sparkle: "Um, no. And unfortunately, I didn't die either. I figured out pretty soon that my plan sucked."
Summer smiled to herself when she remembered it and waited for Seth to make some stupid and not-funny comment about her, but there was no answer from Seth's line.
Princess Sparkle: "Cohen?"
Cpt. Oats: "Yeah."
Princess Sparkle: "Have you talked to any of your parents?"
Cpt. Oats: "No."
Wow, whatever it was that was bothering Seth, it had to be big. Seth was the rambling king – and that didn't concern only the real talking, he also rambled when they were chatting, Summer was convinced that he even rambled in his thoughts.
Princess Sparkle: "Yeaaah, this is what I call conversation."
Cpt. Oats: "I'm sorry, I'm just confused."
Princess Sparkle: "So you really think that something major happened that made Lilly so upset?"
Cpt. Oats: "Sort of. You know her, Summer, and you know that she never cries."
Princess Sparkle: "That is so not true."
Cpt. Oats: "Okay, she cries all the time, when she doesn't get what she wants or whatever. But this time it seemed really different."
Summer couldn't help but feeling concerned about what Seth was telling her. He had, after all, sent her a short message that something weird was going on between his parents and his grandfather. And now Lilly had found Kirsten crying... maybe there really were problems in the Cohen family.
Princess Sparkle: "Well, it's so good that I'm your friend. I have a master plan."
Cpt. Oats: "What?"
Princess Sparkle: "Call your parents and talk to them."
Cpt. Oats: "Wow. You are so good."
Summer stuck out her tongue to the computer screen. There he was back again, sarcastic and ironic as a Cohen should be.
Princess Sparkle: "You want my advice or not? I'm tired and already in bed, all I have to do is close the laptop and you're gone."
Cpt. Oats: "I'm sorry, I do want your advice. That's why I asked you to stay up."
Princess Sparkle: "What about Amy?"
Cpt. Oats: "Gone out partying. What about Craig?"
Yeah, go figure. Summer thought. This was so typically Amy – going out partying with her so-called friends when her boyfriend had just come home from a weekend in California, worried about how things were going between his parents and grandfather.
Princess Sparkle: "Business travel. You know that, Cohen."
Cpt. Oats: "Right. Forgot."
Summer smiled.
Princess Sparkle: "I'm all alone. Girl pajamas party."
Cpt. Oats: "Hey, can I join?"
Princess Sparkle: "Cohen, girl pajamas party... but wait... I guess that works for you."
Now Summer felt proud of herself.
Cpt. Oats: "Haha. Again, so funny. So you think my parents would tell me if something was wrong?"
Princess Sparkle: "Of course they wouldn't. You need to be subtle. Ask hidden questions and stuff like that."
After a longer pause Seth replied, and Summer had to laugh.
Cpt. Oats: "I'm never gonna find out."
Princess Sparkle: "Not if you're already scared only thinking about it."
Cpt. Oats: "I'm so tired. I gotta go to bed."
Princess Sparkle: "Yeah, me too."
Cpt. Oats: "I thought you were already in bed?"
Princess Sparkle: "I need to shut you off before I can sleep."
Cpt. Oats: "I won't interfere. Can we talk tomorrow?"
Princess Sparkle: "Sure, I have classes until four thirty. So say around five in the coffee shop?"
Things would look better after a good dash of sleep.
Cpt. Oats: "Deal. Night."
Princess Sparkle: "Night. Cohen?"
Cpt. Oats: "Yeah?"
Princess Sparkle: "Don't worry so much. It's probably nothing. Remember, Lilly's-"
Cpt. Oats: "Only six years old, I know. What does a man have to do to get some sleep here?"
Sticking out her tongue in the direction of the computer screen again, Summer typed:
Princess Sparkle: "I'm shutting up, don't panic. I was gonna say sleep well, but after this: wish you lots a nightmares."
Cpt. Oats: "Yeah you too. Have a bad night."
Princess Sparkle: "I will."
Cpt. Oats: "Night."
Princess Sparkle: "Night."
Cpt. Oats has logged off.
Summer sighed and logged out of her chatting program as well, closing the computer and laying it onto the ground. She turned off the lights and covered herself with the soft blankets, forcing herself to stay awake and think about the possibilities that could have created the weird tension between the Cohen adults – and that had made Kirsten even cry.
Well, she had an assumption, since she was very familiar with the situation. That was at least what she thought.
But before her mind could go on to find some other reasons Summer had already drifted off into a deep sleep.
Next chapter: Truth Hurts