Disclaimer: Still not mine.

A/N: I had to finish this chapter and put it up today. I just had to. I finished watching the premiere on the internet (you know, that promotion thing FOX is doing) and I just wanted to write this up immediately. Hopefully that's a good thing and will happen more often as new OC episodes air.

As always – thanks so much for the reviews. They always put me in a good mood! Secondly, I don't know why people didn't receive alerts for the updated chapter last week. Or received them late. I didn't receive any reviews in my e-mail up until yesterday and even then, I only got a few (so if I didn't send you a message back – that's why) if that makes you guys feel any better! Hopefully the site's figured it out and that you got an alert for this one.

Also, the italicized bit in this chapter is a flashback in the form of a dream. Cause, you know, I like to expand my horizons and I am really kicking myself for not writing anything fluffy in awhile.

It's getting down to the wire, guys! Only a few more chapters before this story is FINISHED!

Read, enjoy!, and review!

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Summer woke up to the faint but progressively more familiar smell of coffee filling her senses. She sat up, her head pounding, as she saw Lana walk by her room holding a fresh cup of dark coffee.

"Lana?" Summer tried to shout, without letting her head throb even more than it currently was. "Lana!"

"Yeah?" Lana turned back around and peeked into Summer's room, which was almost completely vacant now that she was moving cross-country in a matter of eight hours.

"Can you get me some aspirin? It's on my dresser. My head is killing me. Did I drink a lot last night?"

Lana laughed as she reached for the aspirin, bringing to Summer. "Sum, I wouldn't be shocked if you had half of all the alcohol in the entire bar."

Summer scrunched her face, causing wrinkles of confusion to fill her forehead. "We went to a bar? I thought me and Chad just hung out at his apartment."

Lana laughed harder this time as she handed Summer her coffee so she could swallow the pills, adding sarcastically, "Oh yeah – you, Chad, and some guy named Sam hung at Chad's apartment, which to many of us is also known as Three Clubs."

"I didn't do anything stupid did I? Please tell me Chad didn't let me do anything stupid," Summer pleaded.

"Well, by the time I got there you were making out with this Sam character in a booth and he got angry at you for calling him Seth."

"I did not!" Summer half-squealed, half-groaned.

"Oh yeah," Lana snorted with laughter. "Yeah, you did. You kept saying you loved him and you were gonna marry him and he kept trying to tell you his name was Sam. It was pretty clear he was only looking for a one-night stand. Actually, the situation's rather amusing now that I think back on it."

Summer groaned, handing the coffee back to Lana, as she fell back onto the bed holding her head. "It's not funny."

"Is to. But it doesn't matter. I told him to get lost, which he was more than glad to do when he realized you were talking marriage, and Chad and I brought you back here."

"Was that it?"

"Well, that and the fact that you've been clearly hiding your still relatively intense feelings for Seth."

"I don't have intense feelings for Seth. We broke up."

"Uh huh. Well, according to your proclamations last night, you and Seth aren't really broken up."

"I was drunk."

"You were truthful."

"I made out with another guy."

"Who you thought was Seth," Lana retorted.

Summer grunted again and closed her eyes. "I only have a few hours until I have to leave so I'm just gonna try and lay here and get rid of this massive headache before the flight."

Lana sighed loudly and got up from the bed, taking a sip of her coffee, walking towards the door. Right before she shut it she turned around. "Summer, look. I know you're in this huge denial phase that you're over Seth and that you're moving on and all that. But the thing is, you're not. And that's perfectly fine because, according to Ryan, neither is Seth. You two are both wallowing -"

" – I'm not wallowing -" Summer interrupted but Lana continued, ignoring her.

" – And not being with each other for stupid reasons. And I said this to you last night, but seeing as you don't remember anything I don't think you remember it. 'Destiny is often found on the road you take to avoid it.'" Lana paused, waiting for Summer to reply and when she didn't, Lana sighed again. "Just be happy, Summer. Don't worry about other people – like Seth – being happy. Cause, truth be told, he already was." Lana quietly exited the room, closing the door behind her and Summer turned on her side, letting the tears flow freely from her eyes, causing her head to throb even more.

If it wasn't clear before than it sure was now. Summer wasn't happy – at all.

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"So you'll call as soon as you land, right?" Lana hugged Summer for the fourth time in the airport, right before Summer had to leave to go through security.

"Absolutely."

"Because I don't want to be waiting around thinking your plane crashed."

Summer laughed and hugged Lana again. "I'll call you. Swear."

Both girls smiled as they parted and Summer grabbed Ryan in a hug. "Have fun back at Berkeley."

"Have fun back East," Ryan told her. "And say hi to Seth for me. You know… if you see him."

Summer let go and nodded casually as she stood back, grabbing her suitcase. "Okay, I'll see you guys during Winter Break."

"Bye Summer," Ryan waved.

Lana bounded towards Summer for another hug. "I seriously never thought it would be this hard to say goodbye to you."

Summer, Ryan, and Lana all laughed and Summer replied, "Believe me, I know. I didn't even like you when you first started dating Ryan."

Lana's face fell. "Really?"

Summer and Ryan laughed as Summer walked towards the airport security. "Bye guys!"

Both Ryan and Lana waved goodbye one last time as Summer went through security and got lost in the sea of people to trying to find their gates.

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Summer sat in her 17A seat, staring out the small window onto the tarmac. It was going to be a long flight with no one to talk to. She always had Seth to cheer her up about heading East to lots of cold weather and rain but now she just had some fifty year old, business type man sitting in the seat next to her, already lightly snoring. She didn't even have a shoulder to rest her head on and she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep in a lean back position. She'd have no one to laugh with at the redundant, but necessary, safety precaution videos and no extra peanut bag that Seth would give her because he claimed he hated peanuts. (Even though she knew he didn't – he always insisted that when brownies were to be made, they had to be made with nuts in them, saying they gave the brownies "flavoring.")

Summer sighed and looked over the aisles to scan the other passengers. A lot of them were business aged but many of them looked college aged, probably heading back to their own school for the new school year. Also, a good number of the college aged co-eds had people traveling with them; whether their companions were friends, significant others, or family, almost everyone around Summer's age had someone. Summer had no one. And for some reason, for the past day or two, that fact was becoming stronger and more obvious with each passing minute.

She really missed Seth. And from the sounds of it, her drunken self really missed Seth too. It was hard going from having a package deal of a best friend and boyfriend to having nothing at all. As much as it hurt her to hear things about Seth from Ryan, or to overhear conversations between Ryan and Lana about her and Seth, she kind of relished in it, finding some kind of normalcy in the entire situation. It was like he was still around and she didn't have to miss him. Well, miss him as much.

'Destiny is often found on the road you take to avoid it.' Lana's wise sediment from earlier was ringing in her head as the plane detached itself from the airport and began gliding gracefully along the tarmac. Summer had spent the majority of the morning repeating that phrase in her mind and each time it got louder and clearer. She was avoiding destiny. She was avoiding Seth. She was avoiding her future.

Summer leaned back in the headrest as the plane took off. Her eyes began drooping shut as the televisions behind each seat flickered on with some recent Adam Sandler movie. She didn't have the energy to realize her biggest mistake was making her the unhappiest she'd been since her best friend's death two years earlier.

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"Sum," Seth whispered, rubbing her arm delicately as they lay in the small twin-sized dorm bed. "You have class in, like, twenty minutes."

Summer smiled without opening her eyes. "Don't care."

"I thought studies were on the top of your priority list?"

Summer smirked and opened her eyes, revealing a dazed, jovial looking Seth hovering over her body, holding himself up on the bed by the palms of his hands that were resting on each side of her body. "That was until you came." Summer tapped his nose. "Now you're on the top of the priority list."

"Well, I definitely like the new priority list better." Seth leaned down, capturing her lips with his and slightly grazing his tongue against her closed lips. He mumbled into her mouth words of love as Summer smiled, realizing that her freshman English lit class would teach her nothing in comparison to what Seth had been able to teach her since he had been a part of her life.

She never would have believed that she would be the type of girl that would end up at an Ivy League school due to her boyfriend being her biggest supporter and most helpful pillar of strength. Summer Roberts also would have never have guessed that she would have been traveling to the East Coast, away from all warm weather she had both known and loved, to focus her entire time on studying rather than finding an exciting party, filled with alcohol and random guys to hook up with. In addition, she would have never guessed that after becoming prom queen she would become this complete shut-in, refusing to leave the dorm room without her best accessory – her boyfriend.

Which was probably the biggest shock of all – that her boyfriend was still Seth Cohen. And that he loved her. And that she loved him back.

"Seth," Summer moaned his name as he began leaving traces of his kisses down her neck and onto her collarbone.

"Hmmhmm?" Seth mumbled in response.

"Are you gonna marry me?" Summer whispered, not fully realizing what she had said until she felt Seth's lips leave her skin and his eyes stare intently into her own.

"I mean… well, I didn't mean…" Summer inarticulated as Seth brought his lips back to hers in a heated and passionate kiss.

Seth pulled back breathlessly, cupping her face in his left hand as his right balanced his body above hers. "Yeah, I'm gonna marry you."

Summer's smile widen and she giggled as Seth began kissing her ear, tickling her in the process.

"I'm gonna marry you, Summer Roberts," Seth breathed into Summer's ear, causing another fit of laughter from Summer's mouth. "I love you."

Summer pulled her head away in flirtatious fashion so Seth couldn't tickle her ear anymore. She grabbed his face as he grabbed hers once again and she just smiled up at him as he smiled down at her. Both of them erupted into a convulsion of giggles and Summer stopped suddenly, putting her finger to Seth's mouth to momentarily silence him. "I wanna marry you, Seth Cohen."

Seth's smile widen, as did Summer's, and he tried take Summer's still finger and bring it into his mouth, but she teased him, removing her finger and then bringing it back, repeating the process a few times over. "That's very good to hear. Don't want to think you're just using me for the sex."

"You make me happy, Cohen."

"You make me happiest, Summer."

Summer snaked her arms around Seth's neck and let her fingers play in the curls of his hair as she pulled his familiar lips down towards her increasingly dry ones.

Even though Summer Roberts was only eighteen and she had only finished a single semester of college, she knew no one could make her happier than Seth Cohen did or ever had.

And it was nice to know he was on the same page.

Summer jolted awake as the plane hit a little turbulence and the pilot came over the speaker saying they just ran into a bit of bad weather and were bringing the plane to higher altitude to smooth out the flight. Tears began slipping down from her eyes unknowingly as she felt the plane shake.

The man next to her looked over and spoke quietly to her. "Hey, it's okay. This kind of turbulence is normal."

Summer nodded wordlessly as he continued. "Good. Just wanted to make sure you weren't worrying about not getting to say goodbye to your loved ones."

Summer gave him a faint smile and looked back out towards the window, thinking about the dream she just had and the words the man sitting next to her had just spoken, finally realizing she needed Seth back in order for her life to make sense once again. She loved him. She was being stupid. She was gonna marry him.

Summer flipped open her phone immediately to check the time. Only two hours and forty-three minutes until she was back on Rhode Island soil, telling him her eager thoughts.

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As soon as Summer had landed and retrieved her luggage, she grabbed a taxi and as she was driving towards the Brown University campus, she dialed her former roommate's number, telling her she was quickly dropping her suitcases off with her, but only for a little while, saying she had some stuff to take care of.

Her former roommate, Callie, questioned her. "Why don't you just leave it with Seth?"

"Because that's what I'm taking care of."

Before Callie could question that answer, Summer hung up her phone, becoming aware that she was only a minute or two away from the campus. Summer hopped out, asking the taxi driver to stay put for a moment because she had another stop to make, and then letting both suitcases trail behind her as she quickly approached the dorm building she knew Callie was staying in for the year. Callie was already out front, sending Summer confused looks, as she told Callie, "Can you just take these up the elevator for me? I really have to go."

"Where are you going?"

"To Seth's apartment," Summer yelled back to Callie.

"Aren't you living with Seth this year?" Callie continued yelling as Summer reached the taxicab once again.

"I hope so!" With that, Summer hopped in and gave the taxi driver the new address and they sped off, leaving a befuddled Callie in their wake.

When they arrived, Summer's heart sped up but her legs slowed down. She had raced all the way from the airport, to Brown's campus, and then to this apartment and now she felt knots tying in the pit of her stomach, halting her from making any fast movements.

Summer walked slowly up the walkway, looking between the piece of paper and the apartment door. The same number appeared in both places: 17.

She was at Seth's apartment. The apartment both she and Seth were supposed to share for their upcoming junior year of college.

Summer shoved the paper back into her pocket as she reached up to knock on the door.

It was now or never and Summer had never been more scared in her entire life.

The door opened and a stunned looking Seth stared at Summer, a bag of chips in his hand with some of those chips, at that moment, being devoured in his mouth.

"Hi, Cohen."

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A/N: I apologize for the cliffhanger. Actually, I don't really. Haha.

Look out for more. ;)