A/N: First of all, I don't own One Tree Hill or any of the characters. I'm just borrowing them for the purposes of entertainment. Second of all, this is my second story on here and I hope it's as good (or better) than my first. Season two of OTH was a terrible LP season and I hate whenever it comes around on SOAPnet. So I decided that I was going to write how I wish it had gone. Season one is intact. Everything that happened on the show happened. But this starts right after the season one finale. Haley and Nathan got married, Deb and Keith had sex and Dan caught them, Lucas and Keith took off to Charleston, Dan had his heart attack, Jake left with Jenny, and Brooke and Peyton started mending their broken friendship. This is going to be Leyton heavy and it's not going to focus too much on the other characters... sorry. But enough babbling from me, onto the story-

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Brooke stepped into her best friend's room to find the artist on her bed putting one of her drawings up on her wall.

Peyton turned and looked at her best friend, her hands on her hip in mock annoyance. "Haven't you ever heard of knocking?"

"I've heard about it," Brooke quipped. "But I don't need to knock. I knew you would want to let me in, so I decided to save you the trouble of having to open the door."

"Ah, Brooke Davis, the humanitarian."

"So, let's go, Goldilocks," Brooke said, pulling Peyton off of her bed.

"Go where?"

"Out," Brooke said as if it explained everything. "Does it matter? You and I are hanging out, isn't everything else just details?"

Peyton laughed but then she grew solemn. As bad as she wanted to hang out with Brooke as if nothing had happened, she knew that keeping secrets from her best friend was not the way to get her friendship with the bubbly brunette back on track.

"Brooke, hold on a sec."

"What's up, P. Sawyer?"

Peyton went over to her bag and pulled out the letter that Lucas had left them. She handed Brooke the sealed envelope. "I found this on my door."

Brooke looked down at it and recognized the handwriting. "Lucas."

"Yeah," Peyton nodded. "I was debating on whether or not I should tell you about it, but I want you to be able to trust me again Brooke. And hopefully this goes a long way to helping you and me get back to that."

Brooke handed the letter back to Peyton. "You didn't open it. Why?"

"Because it's addressed to both us, Brooke," she answered. "It wouldn't have been right for me to just read it."

"No, I guess not," Brooke agreed. "But it is Lucas we're talking about. You've done some things that haven't been right because of him."

"I know and I'm so sorry about that," Peyton told her, still feeling guilty over her transgressions against her friend. "I just want us to be how we used to be."

"Me too," Brooke told her. She glared at the letter in Peyton's hand. "Leave it to Broody to find a way to bother us even after he took off. But you know what? It doesn't matter. Leave the letter. You and I are going to forget all about it for now and have a fabulous girls' day out and we'll worry about that later tonight."

"Sounds perfect," Peyton said, dropping the letter on her bed.

-----

Haley took Nathan's hand. They were standing at the entrance of the hospital. It seemed like just yesterday they had been there because of Lucas. But now Lucas was gone and it was Dan who was in critical care.

"Just let me know when you're ready," Haley told her husband. She knew that he had been trying to put off visiting his father for as long as possible. And she was more than happy to allow him, but she also knew that he needed to be there for his mother.

"I don't know when I'll ever be ready, Hales!" Nathan told her. "I don't know if I'll ever be ready. This is Dan we're talking about. He's an ass. His sole purpose seems to make everyone around him miserable."

"I know," Haley told him, soothingly. "But he's also your father."

Nathan nodded. "I'm mad at him. He was such a jerk to me and Lucas at the game and he was a dick to you and an asshole to my mom. But I'm still scared that he's not going to make it. Why is that? How can he be such a horrible person and have me still care about him?"

Haley hugged him tight, making sure he knew that she was right there with him. "Because in spite of whatever Dan has made you believe, you are a good person, Nathan. And your heart is so good and pure. It's part of why I fell in love with you."

"Why else did you fall in love with me?" Nathan asked her, happy to be able to talk about something other than his father for a second.

"Because you have an amazing body and are fairly decent at basketball," she told him, biting back a smile. "Oh, and because you're great in bed."

Nathan laughed at that. "Speaking of which, why don't you let me take you home and show you how good I can be?"

"Nice try, Romeo. You promised your mother that you would stop by," she told him. "Come on, the sooner we do it, the easier it's going to be for you."

"Does that hold true for telling my mom about us?" Nathan asked, showing his wife his wedding ring-clad finger.

"No," Haley said quickly. "I think we should sit on that bit of news until at least we know your dad is going to be okay. I don't think your mom will be able to take it if we spring this news on her while all this stuff is going on."

"You're right," he said. Nathan took a deep breath and looked at the supposed place of healing before him. "I'm so lucky to have you, Haley. I don't know how I would be doing if you weren't with me right now."

"We're both lucky," Haley said, taking his hand again. She raised his left hand and kissed his ring. He smiled and did the same to her. "I love you, Nathan."

"I love you, Haley."

------

Lucas looked out at his new town. Charleston was a very nice place and he knew that with time, he'd grow to love living there. But Lucas also knew that there would never be a time when this town would ever be home to him. No, home would always be that small town in North Carolina where his mother, his best friend, and the love of his life resided.

At the thought of the three women he loved most in the world, his stomach turned. He had been gone for less than a day but already he missed all of them terribly. But it was because of them that he had decided to move to the new town with his uncle.

Lucas was no longer the same man who was worthy of the women's attention or affection and he needed space to find his way back to that. He needed to be the guy that his mother his mother raised him to be; the guy that Haley would be proud of; the guy that would be deserving of another chance with Peyton Sawyer.

He was such an idiot! The girl that he had wanted for YEARS had given him a chance and he had blown it. Several times, in fact. He had been impatient and selfish and completely uncaring of other people's feelings. Had he been bitter as well, he could have been a clone of his father. And that bothered him. Lucas had spent too much time in his life hating Dan to even be able to stomach the idea of becoming anything like him.

So that's why he was there in Charleston. He was running away from the Lucas Scott he had become. He was going to start anew in this place miles away from where he had grown up and maybe he'd find his way back to her.

He checked his watch. It was getting late and he had promised Keith that he'd be back before lunchtime. He sighed and made his way into the new apartment. It was nothing like his mother's house in Tree Hill, but that was part of its charm.

"Keith?" Lucas called as he closed the door behind him.

Keith came into view, his face pale, with his cell phone pressed to his ear. He signaled for Lucas to give him a minute and Lucas nodded.

"How are you holding up?" Keith asked the person on the other line. He was quiet as he listened to the reply. "Is there anything I can do?"

Lucas felt himself grow cold. Something was wrong, he could tell. Keith was looking very serious and that scared him. He didn't want to interrupt the conversation his uncle was having, but if Keith didn't get off the phone soon, Lucas was going to scream.

Keith, oblivious to how Lucas was suffering, continued the conversation. "Are you sure? Because I'll do anything to help. Just say the word." Keith fell silent again for a short while. "Okay, but call me if you need anything and keep me updated. I'll call and check in on you later. Goodbye."

The blond boy watched as his uncle sighed unhappily before he hung up the cell phone. The expression on the older man's face was unreadable. Keith took a deep breath and met eyes with his nephew. "We need to talk."

Lucas forced out a chuckled and struggled to keep his tone light, "That's never good. Are you breaking up with me because of the new haircut, Keith?"

The older man ignored his nephew's poor attempt at humor. "That was Deb on the phone. She called to say that Dan had a heart attack last night."

"What? Did he… I mean, is he okay?" Lucas felt himself tumbling over his words as shock invaded his brain.

"Dan's alive, just barely. He's in a coma right now and the doctors' are taking a 'wait and see' approach." Keith sighed and wrapped an arm around his nephew's shoulders. "Deb's a mess and apparently the news hit Nathan pretty hard."

Lucas nodded. "I can imagine." And he could. Even as much as Lucas disliked Dan, he was still his father. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Actually, there is," Keith said. His expression was solemn with a tinge of sadness in it. "You need to go home, Luke, back to Tree Hill."

"I guess," Lucas started. "But we can't just go back. I left for a reason and the reason is still there. And you have your new job and-"

Keith cut him off. "I'm not going back, Lucas. But you are."

"What?"

"Nathan is your brother and he needs you right now. You're the only one who knows what he's going through."

"But you're not coming? Dan's YOUR brother and he needs you, too!"

Keith smirked. "Weren't you just saying that I couldn't go back because of my new job? Besides, I am doing what I think my brother needs right now."

"By staying here?" Lucas shook his head. "I don't understand-"

"That's right, you don't!" Keith closed his eyes. His guilt over his night with Deb was getting to him. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you like that. It's just there are things that you don't know and I just need you to trust my judgment on this, okay?"

The blond boy nodded. "I do trust you. I just don't know how I feel about just going back." Lucas thought of the letter that he had left Brooke and Peyton. He visibly cringed at the idea of seeing them again. There was no way he was going to be able to face either of them so soon after they had read what he had written to them.

"Too bad that it's not up for discussion, then," Keith told him. "Grab your stuff, Luke, we're leaving in half an hour."

-----

"Are you sure about this?" Brooke asked her best friend.

Peyton looked up from the sealed envelope that was sitting on the table between the two of them. "Not really. Are you?"

"To be honest, I'm not either," Brooke said, picking up the envelope and putting it down again. "Broody sucks."

"I'm not disagreeing with that one," Peyton told her. "You know, I want to open this thing and find out what he wrote because that boy could be so sensitive and romantic and… whatever. But then I worry that it was just a way for his stupid ass to hurt us again."

"Hurt you again, maybe," Brooke said, pointing at Peyton. "Not me. I'm done with him. I gave him my heart and he proved he wasn't worthy of it, so I'm totally over him."

Peyton looked over at Brooke with admiration. "You're a hell of a woman, B. Davis," the blond told her friend.

"And don't you forget it, P. Sawyer," Brooke said.

Peyton reached over and took Brooke's hand and squeezed it. "I missed you, you know? Just hanging out, being best friends. Lucas came between us once and I'm afraid that if we read this letter it's going to happen again."

Brooke shook her head. "That's not going to happen."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Many reasons," Brooke said, grabbing the envelope off the table again. "For one, we aren't going to read it. There's no way I'm going to let Lucas Scott have the last word. For two, I don't want him anymore, so if you want him… he's yours."

Peyton blushed. Did she still want him? She was angry at him, sure, but deep down… how did she really feel about him? "I don't know-"

Brooke cut her off. "But most importantly, he's not coming between us because you're my best friend, P. Sawyer and I love you. Hoes over Bros?"

Peyton bumped fists with her friend. "Hoes over Bros."

"Well, now that that's settled, let's go dispose of the trash, shall we?" Brooke asked, waving the letter in her hand.

"Definitely."

----

"I brought you some coffee," Haley said, handing Deb a styrofoam cup. "It's nowhere near as good as Karen's but I snuck this out of the nurse's lounge so you know that it's got to be better to that liquid tar they gave us earlier."

Deb didn't respond and took a sip from the lukewarm drink she had be given. She didn't even bother to acknowledge Haley's presence. In fact, Nathan's mother had all but ignored the young woman from the second she had arrived at the hospital with Nathan.

Haley sighed. This was her new mother-in-law and mother-in-laws are notoriously known for being hard on young wives. But, Haley reminded herself, Deb didn't even know that Nathan and her had gotten married, so there was no real reason for the cold shoulder treatment.

Nathan observed this and shook his head. He knew that his mother was having a tough time with Dan being in the hospital but that didn't excuse her behavior towards Haley. Nathan took his wife in his arms. If his mother wasn't going to thank her properly, then he was. "Thanks, Hales. This means a lot to me, you being here with me."

"Where else would I be?" Haley asked him as he kissed her forehead. "You're here, so there's no place I'd rather be."

"Yeah, I know," Nathan said, lowering his voice and moving away from his mother. "But we're newlyweds. We're supposed to be honeymooning in some overpriced hotel on the beach. Instead, we're in the hospital waiting to see if my dad's going to make it."

Haley took his face in her hands and kissed him softly. "Hey. Where we are, what we're doing, what's going on… none of it matters if we're together. You can't have forgotten what I told you already. It hasn't been that long, has it? Remember? In sickness and in health; for better or for worse, I'm here for you, Nathan."

"Always and forever?" Nathan asked her.

Haley responded to his question with another kiss. They parted and Nathan smiled at his new wife. That kiss had been all the answer he needed.

Deb watched her son and his girlfriend together. She wished she was young and naïve enough to believe in true love again. She was older, wiser, and very jaded now. And it was all thanks to the bastard lying in the bed who didn't have the decency to just die. But she knew Dan. That man was a cockroach. Nothing short of a nuclear bomb would stop him.

The older Scott woman swallowed hard. She was furious with Dan, but she was also drowning in her guilt. She couldn't help to think that this was all her fault. Her and Keith's. She had called her brother-in-law because she knew that he would be able to understand how she was feeling and she needed that. But even so, she hoped that Keith stayed far away from Tree Hill. He had gotten away and she didn't want him getting pulled back in.

But there he was. Deb raised her eyes to see Keith standing there. Haley and Nathan were so absorbed in each other that they didn't notice the presence of Dan's brother. Deb rose from her seat and made her way over to him.

She took his arm and led him away from the room. When they were sufficiently far enough away, Deb released her grip on Keith.

"What are you doing here?" Deb hissed at him. "I told you to stay in Charleston! Why did you have to come back?"

Keith sighed. He knew that Deb was going to react like that. "I'm not staying, Deb," he told her. "I just came to drop Lucas off. But since I was here, I wanted to check up on you. To see how you were holding up."

Relaxing slightly, Deb slumped against her brother-in-law. "I'm not holding up at all," she said, truthfully. "I feel like I'm suffocating. I don't know what to do. I just want to run away and leave all this behind."

"Why don't you?" Keith asked her. "You said that Dan signed the divorce papers, so just go, Deb. Leave if that's what you need to do."

Deb's eyes widened. She couldn't just take off like that. Actually, no, she could. If she didn't want to be here, she didn't have to be.

She hugged Keith. "Thank you. Listen, you've done so much for me already and I really hate to ask you for another favor but…"

Keith wrapped his arms around her. "I'll drop you off wherever you need me to."

------

Brooke and Peyton sat in front of the little campfire that they had built. Well, that Peyton all the work but Brooke had the very important job of supervising. And that, Brooke had assured Peyton, was very tiring work.

Peyton dug her toes in the sand. The unopened letter sat between the two of them and neither one had made a move to throw into the fire yet.

Brooke looked over at her friend. "You okay?"

Peyton forced a smile. "Yeah, I'm fine, why?"

"Because that smile looks about as fake as your hair," Brooke said.

"Bitch," Peyton responded with a more genuine smile. "No, I'm fine. I was just thinking about how much things changed."

"Because of Lucas?"

"I don't know," Peyton answered. "I guess."

Brooke scooted over until she could wrap an arm around the blonde's shoulders. "You miss him, don't you?"

"A little," she admitted to her brunette friend. "Do you hate me?"

"Not at all," Brooke told her. "I told you already that you could have him if you wanted him. I've decided that I'm not doing the boyfriend thing for a while. I'm going to have fun and hook up, mind you, but no emotional entanglements. They're too hard."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Peyton agreed. "I think I'm going to focus on myself for a while. Maybe it's a good thing that Lucas ran away. It's going to be much easier for me if he's not around trying to confuse and distract me."

Brooke picked up the letter. "Okay, this is your last chance, P. Sawyer. Are you sure you don't want to read the letter?"

"Positive."

Brooke nodded and threw the letter in the fire. The two girls watched as the words written by the boy they had both fallen for burnt away.

"I sure hope it wasn't money," Brooke joked.

"Because what he left on your dresser wasn't enough?" Peyton quipped back.

Brooke's eyes widened but she couldn't contain her smile. "Excuse me but what are you implying, P. Sawyer?"

Peyton stood, grinning. "I think you know what I was implying, B. Davis."

Brooke threw a flip-flop at Peyton who barely managed to jump out of the way. The other shoe, however, hit her square on the leg.

Peyton picked it up from the sand. "You better run," she warned her best friend.

Brooke jumped to her feet, giggling and took off like a rocket. Peyton chased her, holding the shoe in her hand. Their childish actions were halted when they felt a familiar presence there watching them. They both stopped to look at the new arrival.

"Hey," Lucas said, sheepishly.

The girls turned to each other and swallowed hard. They so shouldn't have burnt that letter.