A/N: An extremely long prologue. It's a future fic but different from the other ones I think. It's never going to be as good as "The Freshman Woes" and it goes in a different direction than most future fics but I really like this. Please R&R. Remember, this is only the prologue!

Also, at one point I describe Summer's job as a "Girl Friday" type of job. Does Americans know what that means?

Gotta thank my music muses: "New Slang" by the Shins, "There's always somebody cooler than you" by Ben Folds (not Ben Folds Five), "Rocking the Suburbs" by Ben Folds Five, "Sexual Healing" by Ben Harper, "From the sea" by Eskimo Joe, "Better man" by John Butler Trio and finally, "School of Rock" by the School of Rock band. It's amazing how much easier it is to write when you're listening to good songs. I suggest to download every single one! They all rule.

Pride

Life was life and pride was pride. For him, pride filled his life and he always kept hearing that description of Winnie the Pooh in his head, "he was a very humble bear". He hadn't always been proud; he almost used to be like Winnie the Pooh.

But Ryan was startlingly influential on him in that factor.

Maybe it was the whole "grow up and get mature" thing. "It happens in your twenties Seth," his dad always lectured him.

And it had happened in his twenties. His dad was annoyingly correct.

It slowly begun near the end of college. He could kind of sense it happening, kind of feel it in his bones. He was still the same, he was sure he was. But he was slightly calmer, slightly more sensible, slightly more proud.

And it was for that reason he finished college with a journalism degree on his back and not a single cent in his pocket. But he wasn't going to be running to his parents this time.

"Seth, come back home for awhile! You're only twenty-two, you can't stay in that city all by yourself!"

That city. One of the world's most famous cities reduced to two derogatory words. That city. He was sure his mother would understand. But she panicked, like most mothers do, and she pushed for him to return home. She pushed.

It didn't last for long. He was pretty sure his dad got to her after awhile. Because he was pretty calm in this whole "situation".

"He's twenty-two. He can handle it!"

But even he was pretty shocked when Seth turned down monthly allowances and basic access to money overall. It was the same expression he wore a few years back when Seth announced that he was going to use his trust fund to put him through college.

"I'm not going to spend the rest of my life living off other people. I'm not going to use that trust fund to buy cars and houses and stuff. I'm going to put myself through school with it. I've got to start from scratch."

Because that was what he wanted. Start from scratch. Not just with money. He wanted to move to the East Coast, he wanted to leave the money, he wanted to leave the fakeness of it all and most of all, he wanted to have a damn good time. And that was only possible if he did it on his "own" terms.

Leaving the money was the first sign he supposed. That he was "growing up". "Maturing". Or perhaps it was just the first indication of his pride. He wasn't going to take no money from no one. He said that in a "real homeboy" way in his head and half-pretended he was Ryan.

He knew using a trust fund to attend college wasn't exactly sticking to the man and fending for himself. But it was better than his dad and mother just straight out paying for it, and he knew that if he didn't use it on education, he'd probably blow on Las Vegas hookers again or whatever.

He liked Columbia. No, he loved Columbia. It was the start of the new Seth, which wasn't much different from the old one, at least not in obvious ways.

He was all alone for awhile. It was always a bit weird for him to make new friends. Ryan won a scholarship to Berkley, much to the absolute rapture of his parents. He always liked Ryan but he didn't always like the "extra attention" he thought he got. But he felt slightly ridiculous when he had those thoughts, like Jan Brady. Yet Ryan's scholarship was the most important topic of conversation for about two years. And that just pissed him off sometimes.

Marissa went to England or something, he lost track of her after awhile. She and Ryan had a disgusting, depressing, melodramatic break up at the end of senior year and reasons to keep in contact with her sort of faded and made less sense.

Summer was a different story. Their break up was slow, painful and quiet. While Ryan and Marissa were screaming about "issues" and dredging up the past about babies and Luke, Summer and him were torturing each other in silence.

It was mutual break up. There were no fights, no cheating on each other, no lies, no past "issues". Just tears in Summer's eyes when she realised she was going to Berkley and he was going to Columbia.

"Okay…so I'm not being Joey and Dawson here Cohen. I don't really…I don't really think long distance relationships work. We should just end it at the end of this summer instead dragging it on for another six months where we both end up cheating on one another. At least this way we'll still like each other when we break up."

She said it in that hard biting, straight-to-the-point way of hers. And he knew she was right. He knew he wasn't about to give up his unexpected spot in Columbia for anything. And she loved "Cali" too much. But it was the most painful decision he ever made. And while everyone was focussed on Ryrissa and all their dramas, it slightly pissed him off that no one noticed that he and Summer were so depressed, their hearts so broken, they were almost dying.

Ryan sort of sensed something.

"So how are you and Summer going to handle this long distance thing?"

"We're not."

He said it short, snappy and sweet, something very un-Seth like. And he knew that Ryan got a lot from that.

That was the end. Just a painful, quiet, almost secret-like break up that left him with pain that lived on his shoulders for a year afterwards.

He kept in touch with her for awhile and when they both kind of grew up and grew apart, while he was maturing and developing his pride, he kind of got over it.

It was the summer after he graduated. With a journalism degree on his back and not a single cent in his pocket. Fourth of July. Wandering around Central Park with his newly appointed room mate. Zeppelin Myers, his ol' political science buddy from Columbia. They had just both moved into an apartment in Hells Kitchen the week before. The place was an utter dump, a tiny two bedroom place with cracks above the doorways. But it was both their first "home away from home" and they were both in love with it. Fourth of July was their day, their day to celebrate their new home and their new jobs, Seth working full time in a record store and Zeppelin in a book store. Not a single cent in his pocket. It was their new beginnings, his period of maturing. Realising his pride.

It was the summer after he graduated, Fourth of July, that he saw her again. She was sitting alone on a swing in Central Park, while Fourth of July picnics surrounded her and kids ran everywhere. He saw her from a mile away but for awhile he pretended he hadn't seen her at all. It was only until they were closer and Zeppelin evilly announced he was going to show that six year old who was doing tricks on the slide something he wouldn't forget, that he went up to her.

"Hi Summer."

He hadn't seen her since freshman year. She still looked the same. A little older, a little smarter, a little more mature. But she was still Summer.

"Hi Cohen."

She had moved to the city only the week before. He spent the rest of his day lying on the grass, playing catch up with Summer. Zeppelin got a harassed sounding phone call from his girlfriend, someone who could give Marissa a run for her money and left quite early.

"How cool that he's named after Led Zeppelin. That rocks."

He was a little surprised that Summer had any idea who they were. "His mother was a groupie for them back in the seventies and his dad was just a weirdo fan who followed them around all the time. That's how they met. And that's why he's called Zeppelin."

She got a degree in psychology from Berkley.

"I'm going to be a social worker," she told him proudly.

Summer had matured too. "That thing you did with your trust fund, that scared me. I thought you wasting all that money. Then I thought about it a lot in my freshman year and I got scared that I was more scared about money than anything else. I was sick of being a Newport girl," she whispered to him just a little sadly.

Summer was like him. She was "finding herself" in her twenties, in college, just like him. Just like his dad said he would.

"And a lot changed. And I've changed. I think. I'm not as shallow; I don't care about money any more really. I suppose you can tell by my need to be a social worker. I doubt I'll get any money out of that."

It was a nice change. A refreshing change. She was still Summer. She still could bitch just as good as the rest of them and she still liked to have nice hair and nice clothes and own nice things. It was just that her definitions of what nice clothes and nice things were changed a little, that's all.

She had turned a little punk in outfits, it was quite cute. She followed no one's fashion, just a mixture of punk, and her girly expensive things, and stuff she found in markets. For the first time, Summer was really independent and she didn't rely on anyone, not for their opinions, money, time or fashion advice.

"I'm doing a Seth," she laughed. "I only keep the money that I make myself."

"We're the Newport rebels, the outcasts," he laughed back. "We'll go back home for a visit, and they'll be like ohhh lordy, what happened to these two?"

She had gotten a tiny, part-time job working in the Queens social works department as a Girl Friday. And she was loving it. She loved it almost as much as she loved her tiny, one-bedroom apartment in Queens.

"It's sooooo ugly. I can't get over it. But I love it! I think it's that satisfaction knowing you're doing this all on your own."

She had obviously found her pride like him too.

From that one day in Central Park began the beginning of a new friendship and a new relationship. He only lasted two weeks of hanging out with her "as a friend" before he broke down while they were watching Simpsons repeats and begged for her to go out with him again. She responded with a kiss on his cheeks and the following week he took her to a free concert in Central Park and she told him she had never stopped loving him, really. And he said the same.

It was a crazy, fantastic, wild year, that first year of living in his own apartment and being Summer's boyfriend again. She moved in with him after six months, one week before Christmas, much to the delight of Zeppelin who was successfully trying to get her to turn into a rock chick. They all went to a Shins concert and Zeppelin and Summer dragged him to a Foo Fighters concert, who he was secretly starting to like.

They went home for Chrismukkah/Christmas and it was the first Christmas that everyone was actually all there. And by everyone, he meant everyone. Ryan and his girlfriend Melissa, Julie, Caleb, The Nana, Marissa, and he even ran into Luke at one point.

Ryan was the same; he was probably always going to be the same. There were slight differences. The years in Newport made him slightly more talkative and much more comfortable in upper-class situations. But he was always just going to be Ryan. And that was a good thing. He had a job with Caleb at the moment, putting his architect's degree to good use. It was only a temporary thing, he said, because he wasn't going to use Caleb like that. But Seth could tell that while his pride had gotten stronger, Ryan's had weakened just that little bit more.

His girlfriend Melissa was a bouncy blonde little thing who was still in her junior year, studying how to become a marine biologist. She was chirpy and sweet and smart and an animal lover and seemed a strange match for Ryan. But he could tell Ryan had a thing for her in a massive way. She almost reminded him of Anna.

Marissa was still living in England, apparently becoming a fashion designer. She arrived late on Christmas Eve, with big Jackie O styled sunglasses and a designer haircut. She was happier from the last time he had seen her but they both realised they had even less in common than either of them believed.

At the sight of Summer, who was sitting next quietly to Seth while he, Ryan and Melissa were playing poker in the pool-house, she almost squealed and ran over to her. She then promptly pulled Summer up and announced,

"We're going to the bathroom."

They disappeared for twenty minutes and when they returned, Marissa went outside and lit up a cigarette, her face pensive.

"What were you guys doing in there all that time?" Ryan laughed.

"Oh, we were just playing catch up. I haven't seen her since we graduated from high school, really."

Summer was being quiet and almost shy. Ryan dropped the questions and Melissa went to introduce herself to Marissa, curiosity almost killing her.

Summer rolled her eyes and took a swig from Ryan's beer. "So, Chino. Marissa, Melissa. Don't those names just confuse you?"

He scowled at her and stalked outside to make sure Marissa didn't kill Melissa.

Summer turned to Seth with the same expression she wore when he told that she wasn't rude to him, she just didn't speak to him; way back in their junior year of high school.

"I'm really happy with our life in New York Cohen," she whispered.

"So am I." He kissed her hand.

"It's just that…" She stopped. "Am I a horrible friend for not being really close to Marissa?"

"Only people in movies stay close with their high school friends."

She laughed a little.

"I guess we just don't have that much in common anymore. I guess I changed more than I realised."

Chrismukkah came and went and they were secretly glad as hell to return to home. Home. Because Newport wasn't home anymore. New York was.

Time passed, as time does. Two years of relationship full, Zeppelin died in a stabbing in Central Park. He was cutting through the park at night to rush home so he wouldn't miss the Yankee's game on television.

Summer took it hard. She was being the emotional Summer, the loud, crying, yelling girl and she sobbed her whole way through his very Catholic funeral. He took it harder but he barely registered it, didn't cry, didn't yell, just felt all the pain in private.

Their relationship became crazy around that time. They were celebrating their twenty-fourth birthdays and Summer was still a Girl Friday and he had only just gotten a job in a newspaper, but all he did was photocopy stuff and get the lunches and coffee. She was frustrated, depressed by Zeppelin's death and was constantly yelling that she expected that she would be more at this age. "Not just some pathetic starving twenty-four year old," she screamed.

They had a lot of fights, because she was feeling so much emotion and he wasn't feeling anything at all. Or he was, but he didn't say a thing.

They had a horrible, disgusting screaming fight on November 13th, and she kicked him out. It was just a disgusting fight. They were both screaming about everything, how they had no money, how she wanted more and how he was accusing her that maybe she really was just a Newport girl underneath it all. She screamed that he was just a feeling-less zombie, that he was like Ryan but worse. The neighbours below them slammed on their ceiling and yelled at them in Spanish. He stormed out in anger and she told him never to come back and for that whole day, that November 13th, he walked around the entire city. He spent the day wandering around Manhattan and looking at all the Sex and the City look-alikes and just feeling so much contempt for Summer.

Around six pm, when he was sitting in a McDonalds and feeling calmer, he realised that he didn't want to loose Summer over something like this. And when he walked past a jewellery shop, things just started to make more sense.

He went back home, where Summer was lying on the couch and crying to a Death Cab song. She had been crying a lot lately, ever since Zeppelin died. It was as if his death just brought everything to the surface, as if it made everything just boil over and spill all over the floor.

He sat down next to her in silence and hung his head into his hands. She sat up and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"Summer," he began and his voice cracked. "Summer, we've been going out for two years or nearly four, depending which way you look at it. And the way I talked to you today and the way you talked to me…Neither of us deserve that. We should have more respect for each other, at least."

She nodded.

"And I've been walking around all day and feeling almost…almost hate for you, I was so angry. Then I realised something. You're the only thing who makes me feel like that. I mean, I'm not a hateful person in general. And that's always kind of bothered me, that I can almost hate you sometimes after our fights. But for this past month or so…I haven't felt a thing. I just felt dead."

"I know."

He sighed. "Zeppelin was my best friend," he whispered.

And he was. Ryan was, he always was but it was different. Zeppelin had been his roommates in college, his roommate in his new apartment, part of his new beginning, part of his new life. And now he was gone.

"And it killed me. It was killing me even up to this morning. It wasn't only after till we had our fight and I was walking around Manhattan just so angry and so pissed off, that I realised that I was feeling something for the first time in ages. And you're the only one who can make me feel. You make me feel."

She made her "Ohh, Cohen" face and her eyes became slightly wet at the corners.

He took her hands, still hanging his head. It was corny, it was corny, it was corny, he kept repeating in his head. It was but she was Summer and she melted him like butter. And sometimes they were ridiculously corny when they weren't in public.

"And I stopped outside this jewellery store and I saw all these rings and…"

She gasped quietly.

"And…I don't know if I can afford an engagement ring at the moment, but that doesn't matter, because I'm still asking you." He said that last part almost to himself.

He turned to her.

"So I don't have a ring and I don't have…I mean I can't offer you security and a predicted good future and I still can't believe I'm your type but Summer, I have to ask. Please baby, please marry me. You're the only person left who can still remind me I'm still alive. You make me feel," he repeated.

It was raining outside and Death Cab was on the stereo and she hated them but she also kind of didn't. Really old Martha Stewart repeats were on the television and she definitely hated that and their apartment was old and faded and cracked and tiny and she didn't have an engagement ring and Seth wasn't doing the old fashioned thing and getting on one knee. He was just clutching her hand and hanging his head, saying oh so corny things and looking very scared.

And it was insanely all wrong and nothing was how she ever dreamed it.

But it was very Seth Cohen-ish. It was very…perfect in a stupid way.

She lifted his head with a slight push under his chin.

"Okay," she whispered.

They liked the pace of their marriage. It probably seemed to fast too some, marriage proposal in November, wedding in February but it was alright for them. They had a tiny ceremony in the Plaza, at Kirsten's instance. They were planning to go to Las Vegas. That had horrified Kirsten and Summer's father. The change in venues quickly changed Kirsten's opinion but Summer's father stayed unhappy.

It was the biggest of flashbacks in a way. Summer walking herself down the aisle, just as Kirsten had done. Seth was barely a good enough husband when he had money and now he was just a coffee kid for a newspaper.

It was the end of contact with Summer's father and Summer for a long time.

After six months of marriage, Summer got a promotion and she became the assistance to the child psychologist in the social works department in Queens. Another six months followed and Seth became the obituary writer for the paper. It was a small job, "but a stepping stone!" he cried to Summer excitedly and it was all changing from here.

It had changed. It was still changing. Throughout that year of their first year as husband and wife, they both got promotions, they moved to a four bedroom house in Queens that they would be paying the mortgage off for the rest of their life and they had their first child.

"Baby Cohen."

It was what everyone called her for weeks after she was born. On November 13th. Nine months after their wedding and exactly a year after their proposal. A tiny, dark-haired girl called Manhattan.

"Our love is in New York," Seth sang to her the day after she was born, "and we love you."

Manhattan smiled, five minutes after she had been born. She didn't cry when she came out, she just looked at everyone and smiled. They said babies couldn't smile that young but she did. She had dark straight hair like her mother and her father's smile.

"Twenty-five, married, got a kid and poor," Summer muttered to him sarcastically on November 15th. "Always my dream."

But she was only kidding. Because she was happy and so was he. And they knew it.

Their first Chrismukkah spent as a proper family meant banging their heater to get warm, Seth trying to explain the story of Chrismukkah to a one month old baby; just nothing special, when they thought about Newport Christmases and Chrismukkahs.

"I can't believe I'm living my father's life," he whispered to her on Christmas Eve.

"What?"

"Living in New York, being poor, watching my wife walk herself down the aisle."

Life was just that. Over the years Summer became the head child psychologist in the social works department, although her pay check barely changed. Seth became the "events" writer of the paper. He spent his weeks writing "filler" pieces on a book shop's tenth anniversary or something equally uninteresting. He hated it and barely got any money but he loved being a writer. He was going to start his novel, one day. One day.

And he was living his father's life. He was living in New York but he loved New York. And he was poor but at least he was working and working hard.

At thirty-four, nine years had passed and a lot had changed and a lot had stayed the same.

Manhattan was eight, turning nine in November. For now, it was the day before summer holidays and she was still eight, still had her mother's sleek hair, still had her father's smile. She was the quiet one of the family, the shy one and everyone joked that perhaps there had been a switch in the hospital.

Zeppelin and Halle were definitely children of Seth and Summer. Twin seven year olds, Halle had beautiful curly hair like her father and Zeppelin just had a mess. They were loud and crazy and talked way too much and fought a lot. They liked to laugh and Zeppelin was into seventies' rock music and had a slight fascination with his namesake, not the band but Seth's old roommate. He made instant friends with Zeppelin's younger sister, an eighteen year old with several piercings and tattoos, who was still slightly screwed up since her brother's death of ten years ago.

At last was little seven month old James, or Jimmy, or Jim, or Jimsta, or Jamey or whatever Seth felt like calling him on a particular morning. He had his father's hair and his father's eyes and seemed to have the same humour as him and Seth just loved him.

They all lived in their tiny house in Queens, with two small storeys and four small bedrooms and one bathroom. They were known as the "Cohen Clan" around their neighbourhood.

They led a simple life, he knew it. But it was a simple life that he was proud of. Because it was all his.

It was just his life. And he was proud.

Because somewhere along the years, he developed his pride.