A/N: Title is after Lou Barlow's song "Legendary." This chapter was really hard to write, and I think it might be frustrating to read, but hopefully the end represents the direction things are going to go in. I got some really opinionated reviews on the last chapter, which was actually really great--it made me think a lot about this story and the characters. I know how upsetting it was to read about Summer planning to leave and Seth seemingly allowing her too, but I guess what I was trying to do was to illustrate how difficult it is to leave behind your life, even if it's not a great one. This chapter probably will make everyone who criticized the last chapter even more upset, but I'd like to hear your opinions regardless. In the end, I'm trying to create a story that is both thought-provoking and realistic, but at the same time, I love Seth and Summer and most of all Seth and Summer together. I promise that the story won't end on a sad note! Please let me know what you think of this chapter and the other ones coming up. I appreciate it so much. Thank you!

LEGENDARY

Seth woke up to an empty bed, crumpled sheets, and a scribbled note placed delicately on the pillow next to his. He knew that handwriting better than anyone else's. And he knew what had happened immediately.

He forced himself upright and walked into his kitchen, missing the cheerful little girl sitting at the table eating her cereal, and her beautiful mother next to her, satiated by watching her daughter's every move. His answering machine blinked red and he hit it anxiously, wondering if something had happened, but when he heard a coworker's voice drone on through the speaker, he hit the erase button. He already knew he needed to get back to work already. He already knew he'd taken enough days off already. He already knew that there was a trip to Hong Kong and another to London that had to happen in the near future.

So he unwillingly got in the shower, shaved, and put on a suit and tie, grabbing his briefcase and laptop angrily from where they lay on his closet floor. He snatched the note and shoved it in his pocket; he didn't have the heart to read it right then. Before leaving for work he tiptoed towards Audrey's room, hoping that by some stroke of luck Audrey would be playing on the floor and Summer would look up at him when he entered, smiling her dazzling smile, and they could have one more day.

They weren't there, and there wouldn't be one more day.

He shut the door when he saw the room empty, the bed made, and all traces of the two girls he thought he might be in love with, gone.

And he stormed down the stairs, got in his car, and drove towards the Newport Group, reality setting in.

"You're late," an irate Marcus, sitting on her sofa, said furiously when she entered, clutching suitcases, Audrey trailing her.

"Who are you?" Audrey asked, wrinkling her nose. She'd been moody ever since Summer had woken her up early in the morning to drive to Los Angeles, and she'd complained the whole ride home: why couldn't they stay? Why wasn't Seth coming? Why did they have to go home?

Marcus didn't respond. He simply looked at Summer, haggard and achy from carrying their bags and finally weaning herself off the painkillers. "I'll give you five minutes. I'll be in the bedroom."

Summer wished Seth was there right now to take Audrey and comfort her and care for her. But he wasn't. And she had made that choice. She wasn't sure it was the right one, but she had made it. "Audrey?"

"Mommy, who is that man?" Audrey asked, with a look of fear dancing across her face. Summer didn't have the heart to tell her baby that that scary man was her father.

"It doesn't matter," Summer replied desperately. "Go into your room, okay? Here. Let me come for a second."

"Who is that man?" Audrey asked again, raising her voice, on the verge of tears. Summer silently begged her daughter not to do this, not to do this now. This could ruin everything. This would be bad. They would get hurt. Summer couldn't get hurt. She couldn't get hurt now. She quickly rushed Audrey into her bedroom, setting her daughter up with two puzzles and some stuffed animals and putting on her headphones, hoping it might drown out the sounds of whatever was to come. She shut the door and watched Audrey's face slowly disappear behind it, the door closing on Audrey's brimming eyes.

She hesitated but knew she had to go back.

"Took you long enough," Marcus snapped, and she only bent her head in submission.

"What do you want, Marcus?"

"I want you to come here," Marcus instructed menacingly, "and I want you to undress me. All of me. And I want to push you up against this wall, and I want to fuck you hard. I want to fuck you so hard that you cry."

"Marcus, our four-year-old is in the next room, do you really expect me—"

"She's not mine, Summer!" Marcus snapped. "How many times have I told you that? And yet you never listen! Never!"

"My daughter is in the other room," Summer whispered, correcting herself subserviently, eyes glossy with watery tears. "I can't do this, Marcus. Please understand. I can't do this right now."

"And yet you're here," Marcus smiled cruelly. He stood, pacing around the room, as she plastered herself against the wall to stay away from him. "I know where you've been, Summer. You've been in Newport Beach, haven't you, with your old buddy Seth Cohen."

Summer willed herself not to scream. It will only make things worse, she chastised herself. "I was away," she said defiantly. "Any other detail is none of your business."

"And yet you try to guilt me out of doing what I'm about to do to you by pinning the parentage of your daughter on me," Marcus smirked. "You went to that fancy school, didn't you? Accepted to Brown? I think you should know the word—hypocrisy? But then again, you were kicked out…"

Summer's blood boiled. It was one of the most sensitive of topics for her; her expulsion from Brown had sent her on the path that had led her to where she was right at that moment. She still thought that if she'd been able to stay at college in Rhode Island, she would have been able to make things work with Seth. Her life would have been drastically different. "Don't go there."

"Don't go there?" Marcus laughed. "Summer, I can go wherever I want."

He stepped over to her, so they were a foot or so away. "I can be right here." He stepped closer, so their bodies were flush; his legs were spread to trap hers, his chest pushing back her soar abdomen and breasts, his hardening erection pushing onto her skin, his face glowering down at hers. Summer could only hope Audrey wasn't hearing any of this.

"Why do you always go back to him?" Marcus hissed as he pinned her struggling arms to the wall. She was just five foot two and he close to a foot taller, and she knew that there was no hope of escape at this point.

"To Seth?" She asked, smiling sadly. Because he is the best thing that ever happened to me. Because he would be here in a second if I could just reach for the phone. Because he knows me, better than anyone does, better than I know myself.

"Yes, to Seth," Marcus mocked, and her flushed cheeks stung.

"I guess it's hard to forget your first love," she admitted shyly, feeling small and young and powerless before him.

"Undress me." He snapped, raging.

She looked at him with weary eyes. "Marcus—"

"I said, take off my clothes, you bitch!" He slapped her forcefully, a sharp noise sounding as his palm connected with her pale, already bruised cheek, and she stepped back to the wall again, fear illustrated in her emotive eyes and tired face. She bent her head down and stepped towards him, reaching out and struggling to work her thin fingers around the tiny buttons of his shirt. He kissed her neck as she did it, sucking and biting at her once perfect skin, and she tried to keep from crying as the shirt finally slipped away.

"My pants, whore," he reminded her when she hesitated. Jaw clenched, she unbuttoned and unzipped them, getting them off of him. He stood before her in his boxers, and he slapped her again, alerting her of what he wanted. She slid the elastic band of his boxers down, exposing him to her, as she prepared for what he would do to her next.

"One day you'll go there and you'll stay," Marcus hypothesized, referring to Seth's house, and Summer didn't know how to reply. "One day you'll think you have power of yourself."

Summer's eyes widened; she was outraged at this final insult. "I do have—!"

"You are nothing, Summer. Never tell yourself you are anything more than a white trash diner bitch and a fuck buddy. Not even good enough to be a trophy wife. You have nothing. And if Seth loved you as much as you think you love him, he would be here right now, saving your sorry ass. Wouldn't he?"

Summer's eyes were shut tight as silent tears made puddles in the corners of her eyes, flooding down her face. But he didn't care. He didn't care that he had just made her feel pain more sharp than he ever had before, just in those few words. It meant nothing to him. He systematically tore her from her clothes, taking little care to either her or the items as he removed them with no feeling, no emotion. She shivered nakedly as he stripped her down, her skeletal figure becoming more exposed as he tore through the thin cotton of her shirt and violently seized her pants, leaving her pressed against her bedroom wall in her loose bra and underwear, bare and revealed, a prisoner in her own home.

Finally she looked him in the eye as he removed her bra and underwear, her last pieces of self, her last pieces of decency. "He does love me," she whispered in a low voice, surprising both him and herself with her words.

"You can never think that," he said strictly, pushing her down to her knees before him, as her back throbbed in agony; it felt as though every bone in her body was on fire. "Nobody loves you, Summer. If somebody loved you, you wouldn't be here." He considered her for a moment, weak, below him, on the floor, her pain and struggle obvious on her face, before shoving her down further so her legs were curled up uncomfortably under her and every previous injury smarted with pain. He took her face roughly in his hands and pushed her mouth onto him, almost choking her with the forcefulness and vehemence with which he did so. "You can do better than that, Summer. Give me what I want. Blow me, you whore."

When she didn't, he let her go, and she panted to catch her breath, but before she realized what was happening, he had taken his lighter from the pocket of his pants on the floor and had brought it dangerously close to her face. Summer tried to stand but the pain in her legs prevented her from doing so, and she tried to scoot back instead. But he took the lighter and lit a cigarette, inhaling and breathing smoke into her face. She relaxed, her fear that he would light her on fire evaporated, but once he saw her without fear he snapped, he put out the cigarette on her bare breast. She shrieked in pain but the noise was lost as he shoved her lips to his mouth with his hands.

"You can never go to him, Summer," he warned, pausing for breath. "You can never leave. You can never leave me."

All she wanted was to run to Audrey's room and take her baby and leave. Leave forever. Leave, and go to Seth, and have everything be okay again. But she was stuck, stuck underneath Marcus, literally and figuratively.

Finally, after thrusting in and out of her so roughly and violently that Summer screamed with pain, he fell asleep, worn out and exhausted. In complete silence Summer edged out from beneath him, tiptoeing to her ripped clothes. She had to get out as quickly as poassible. She put them on as best she could, as her movement was limited and her limbs throbbing, and ran to Audrey, comforted by her daughter's sleeping figure on her carpeted floor. She wished she could carry her and prevent her from awakening, but she could hardly dress herself, let alone carry a four-year-old girl. She gently stirred Audrey and walked her sleepy daughter towards the door, taking with her only the carefully hidden wad of cash she always kept in the apartment.

Seth met them on a bench in the playground. Summer had called him helplessly, not knowing what else to do. His eyes became glassy when he saw Summer's destroyed face, and he knew that her body was probably in an even worse state. Audrey sat beside her mother, fast asleep. "Oh, Summer."

"I need you to take her for me," Summer said, her eyes aching with sadness. "I can't let her live like this."

"No, Summer. You can't do this—"

"All I have ever wanted was to give Audrey a good life. The life she deserved, " Summer explained, looking down. "And I failed, Seth. I failed her."

"You didn't fail her, Sum," he said sternly. "She loves you. She loves you so much. She loves you like you loved your mother."

That hit a chord with Summer, who lifted her face up so her eyes could meet Seth's. He winced visibly when he saw the purpling contusions and raw, red skin, the cuts and scrapes and bruises.

"Sum, I can't let you do this. Remember that day, two years back or so? When you got that call from the stepfather you'd never met, and he told you your mother was dead?" Summer showed no emotion. "Remember how I picked you up and we drove for hours, just driving around, and you cried harder than I'd ever seen you cry?"

"I thought she would come back," Summer whispered in admission. "Some day. I thought I'd at least see her again."

"If you want to give Audrey the best life you can, come with me," he urged. "I'm sorry I didn't force you both to stay with me earlier. This isn't fair to you and it isn't fair to Audrey. She needs her mother, and she also needs to never have to be scared of Marcus, to get the best education she can, to be around people who love her--"

"Yes."

"She needs—wait. Yes? You said yes?" Seth's face broke out in a wide grin, his eyes lighting up in excitement. She smiled too, a genuine smile, and she realized that things were going to be better. Things were going to be right.

"I said yes, Cohen. I'm saying yes. And I'm so sorry that I thought leaving was doing the right thing." Summer put her head in her hands as she realized the weight of her mistake. She should have learned the first time, should have understood the gravity of what she was doing. She got lost, caught up in her own mind, and Audrey and Seth were paying for it emotionally as much as she was physically. Finally, she understood that sometimes you had to accept help. Especially, she thought to herself, when it was offered by a man you loved.

Seth carried Audrey to his car, giving her a moment to collect herself, and then returned to the bench to carry Summer to the front seat. He placed her down as gently as he could, and they drove back to Newport in peaceful silence. Seth glanced over at the two girls as he drove, smiling silently at their sleeping forms, vowing to protect and love them for the rest of his life.