Lucas managed a small smile and wave as Haley was loaded into the back of the ambulance, both hands clutching her swollen stomach. Nathan, still in his cap and gown, practically dove in after her. Then the doors swung shut. For a split second, Lucas thought about trying to go with them, then decided against it when Brooke's eyes met his for a split second with a stern look. This was Nathan and Haley's moment. Everyone else would get to meet the baby soon enough.

As the ambulance pulled out of the Tree Hill High parking lot, Peyton, who hung back by Lucas's side, reached over and squeezed his hand. "I can't believe this is happening," she whispered, a hint of excitement in her voice. The two looked at each other and were granted one solid moment of enthusiastic anticipation over Nathan and Haley's baby boy before Lucas's cell phone buzzed loudly. Everyone else there-namely Peyton, Brooke, Mouth, and Skills-turned to face him instantly. Lucas pulled out his phone, his mind knowing but not wanting to believe what it might mean that he was getting a text from someone when everyone who normally texted him was right there.

Text from Deb Scott: There's been a change in her condition. You need to get back to the hospital as soon as you can.

Lucas clicked his phone shut and shoved it into his pocket under the gown immediately. He scanned the parking lot for his car. He vaguely heard a male voice-probably Mouth's-ask what was going on, then sprinted in the direction of his vehicle and didn't look back.

Lucas didn't remember anything about that drive two minutes after it happened. He didn't remember stopping at a red light to yank off his cap and gown and throw them in the backseat behind him or stashing his high school diploma under the passenger seat. He didn't even remember finally answering the phone the fourth time Peyton called him. All he remembered was three words he said out of their very brief conversation. "She could die." Those words kept replaying in his head over and over as he ran through the hospital parking lot and upstairs to where his mom was just being wheeled out of her room and down the hall to the operating room. She could die.

Lucas froze for a moment in the hallway when he looked away from his mom and saw Nathan, who was wearing an almost identical suit to his own. It took him a split second to remember what his brother was doing there. The door to the operating room his mother was being wheeled into swung shut.

"How's Haley?" Lucas whispered.

"Still in labor," Nathan replied. He didn't ask anything about Karen's condition, because it was obviously not good. Wordlessly, Nathan pulled Lucas into a quick hug that lasted as long as Haley's ten-second break between contractions. As soon as she screamed, he let go and ran over to her, leaving Lucas with nothing but a glance that told him, "Toughen up, man. You can do this." Suddenly, he wasn't sure if he could. He had already lost the man he would always consider his father this year. He couldn't lose his mother too. Not to mention how he was going to take care of his baby sister. Oh god…he didn't even know what he was supposed to name her, let alone how to do anything else. Nathan and Haley would have to teach him how to change diapers. And he wouldn't even have nine months to get used to the idea like they had.

Lucas felt a hand on his arm and suddenly realized he was shaking. "Lucas Scott?" asked the nurse standing beside him. He nodded. "Do you want to come watch?" He nodded again, then wordlessly followed her to a room with a screen that just barely allowed him to see what was going on.

"Come on, Mom," he whispered. "You can do this. You have plenty to fight for. You've got me. You haven't even met yours and Keith's baby yet."

"Her heart rate's dropping," said one of the doctors on the flipside of the screen. "Come on, Karen. Just breathe."

"Just breathe, Mom," Lucas whispered. "Stay with us." He held his breath unintentionally for a moment while the doctors moved slightly frantically in the operating room. "Come on, Mom. I'm right here." In that exact moment, Karen stopped breathing. "Mom!" shouted Lucas, barely able to breath himself as those three lines on the screen went flat and the doctors crowded around Karen's bed wielding a gas mask and a crash cart.

She could die.

No. No way. Not the same Karen Roe who had stood up to Dan Scott, who at nineteen years old had become a single mother and opened a restaurant on her own. She had pulled through at so much at times of her life when she had no one willing to help her. And yet right now, when she was surrounded by people who would do anything for her, there was nothing she could do to save herself.

But that wasn't entirely true, Lucas realized. His mom always did have someone to help her. Keith. He had started helping out with Lucas before he was even born. Not that there was anything that Keith could do for her now. Or was there?

"Okay, Keith," Lucas whispered. "You're going to think I'm crazy. But I need your help." He paused to suck in a quick breath. "Nathan swears that you're the person who saved him when he was trapped in that car. I don't know if that's true or not. But is there anything you could possibly do to help my mom right now? Because I can't do anything anymore. I've done everything I can. And it wasn't enough."

Thirty seconds later, Lucas saw a thumbs-up from the doctor who'd been managing the crash cart. "Vitals are rising. We've got her back." He let out a long sigh of relief he hadn't known he'd been keeping in.

After a few minutes, a nurse came out to tell Lucas that he'd be able to see his mother in half an hour and that she was no longer in immediate danger. Lucas quickly answered a few concerned texts from his friends on the way to the nursery. As soon as the nurse in charge saw him, she retrieved his tiny half-sister from her bassinet and brought her out.

"How was your graduation?" asked the nurse as she put the baby in Lucas's arms.

"Stressful," Lucas answered truthfully.

"I can imagine," said the nurse sympathetically. "Your father was here just earlier today, you know."

"Oh yeah?" snapped Lucas. "What did he want?"

"He just wanted to hold his niece for a moment," said the nurse very apologetically.

"Don't you ever let him near her again." Lucas began walking in the opposite direction cradling his little sister, stopping in his tracks when he saw the news report being played on the television hanging in the corner of the end of the hallway.

"And that concludes today's weather report. Up next, we have some breaking news. Dan Scott, the current acting mayor of Tree Hill, has confessed to the pre-meditated murder of his older brother, Keith, who died last year in a supposed high school shooting. The police have not yet released a statement about whether or not he is also now suspected to be responsible for the death of Jimmy Edwards, the shooter who allegedly committed suicide after killing Keith and keeping several of his fellow students locked in a room for hours. A preliminary hearing is to be held for Dan Scott this coming Thursday. In the meantime, his second-in-command is to be instated as mayor effective later today. This is Kelsey Carrero reporting for Local News 8."

"No way," muttered Lucas. He turned the corner and began heading upstairs where he knew he'd be able to wait outside his mom's room with the baby. As he reached another long hallway, Deb Scott rounded the corner at the other end of the hallway. Lucas opened his mouth to ask if she'd seen the news, but the look on her face told him she had.

"Does Nathan know yet?" asked Lucas.

"No," said Deb. "Can we please not tell him or Haley until tomorrow? They're both so happy right now."

"I'll try not to," said Lucas. "Eventually, Nathan is going to start wondering why Dan isn't here."

"He's already wondering," Deb admitted. "I just told him he's at a meeting he had no way to get out of."

"Which is technically true," replied Lucas. "How's the baby doing?"

Deb beamed. "He's perfect. You guys should come see him."

"Maybe later," said Lucas as he cautiously repositioned his two-day-old sister in his arms. On his way down the hall to his mom's room, he couldn't resist peaking at Nathan and Haley, who were now laying side by side on the hospital bed with the baby wrapped up in a blue blanket and sleeping on Haley's chest. The couple were quietly whispering to and stroking the baby, the sheer joy on their faces a little heartbreaking knowing that they would soon have to deal with the news that Nathan's father was in jail for cold blooded premeditated murder.

When Lucas reached the hallway that Karen's hospital room was in, he balanced the baby on one arm and sent out a few text updates to friends while his newborn sister curled and uncurled her tiny wrinkly fists. Peyton, Mouth, and Skills all repeatedly asked if they should come down to the hospital and be with him, he assured them everything was fine and that he'd see them in a few days, then turned their attention away from him by letting them know Haley's baby was born. Normally he liked having someone to hang out with while he was sitting around at the hospital waiting for his mom to wake up, but right now the company of a sleepy newborn was enough.

Dan Scott was in jail. Maybe for the rest of his life. Maybe for just a few years if he was remorseful enough for the courts to take pity on. What did it matter? No amount of time behind bars would be long enough to bring Keith back.

Lucas tried to picture how each person in his life was going to react when they heard the news. His Mom and Haley would both initially be shocked, then horrified. Nathan would be absolutely devastated. Everyone else in the town would be baffled by how their kind charismatic mayor could do such a thing to his own brother. Because they didn't know the real Dan Scott. Not like he did.

As for Lucas's paternal grandparents, he had met them exactly twice in his living memory. The first time happened when he was six. He had been at Keith's garage helping him work on an old car while his mom was working, and May and Royal Scott had walked into the room and started to ask Keith a question about whether or not he was planning on going to a basketball game with them. As soon as they noticed Lucas, a look of flustered shock took over May's face, like she had just walked in on a stranger in the bathroom. Royal's face shot from surprise to anger in seconds. "We'll come back later," he had said to Keith. Both had backed out of the room as if Lucas was something disgusting. He hadn't know those were his grandparents then, as he hadn't yet made the connection that his uncle's hated younger brother was the only person who could be his father. When he eventually did, he never looked at himself the same way again.

The second time Lucas met Dan's parents was six months ago, when they were in town for a few days and Nathan and Haley-out of sheer obligation-had invited them over for dinner. Lucas had stopped by to see if Nathan wanted to play basketball with him and the guys. That time May had just looked at him with surprise, and Royal had just glared at Nathan and said, "You're in contact…with him?" Nathan might have been afraid to answer, but Haley, bless her heart, had glared back at him and said, "Yes. And he's our baby's godfather. You got a problem with that?" That had been enough to shut him up and make Lucas wonder if the reason Dan Scott had managed to establish the most dysfunctional family in Tree Hill history was because he never really knew what a functional family was like to begin with. How were Dan's parents-especially his father-going to wrap their minds around the fact that their darling son had murdered his own brother for no reason?

The worst part, of course, was that the baby girl in Lucas's arms would never get to meet her father. She wouldn't know what it was like to hear his voice other than from videos, or fall asleep against his shoulder, or play with him, or laugh with him. Lucas would be able to tell her what it was like to grow up with Keith as a father, but it wasn't the same thing. Depending on how long Dan's prison sentence was, Nathan and Haley's son might grow up without the grandfather who fought to help his family stay together. Which in some ways might be just as well. But still.

Lucas knew that Keith had sent him a message, that he had wanted him to find out the truth about his father and prove it to the world. Now it appeared he had ultimately succeeded. Wasn't winning supposed to feel better than this?

"Lucas Scott?" Lucas turned around when he heard the nurse's voice. "You can come see your mother now." Lucas got up and entered her hospital room with the baby.

"How's she doing?" he asked.

"So far, so good." Not very encouraging, Lucas thought.

It was slightly comforting that Karen looked a little less pale in her hospital bed than she had the last couple of days. Maybe however the crisis was resolved had fixed something else. Had Keith actually done something to help bring her back? They would never know.

"Enough of this, Mom," said Lucas. He picked up Karen's limp hand in his. "It's time for you to come back." He held her hand close to the baby. "We need you."

Lucas prayed silently as the baby girl yawned and her eyes widened and darted around the familiar room. When she noticed her mother's hand, she reached over with both arms and gripped two fingers. The moment her skin made contact, Karen's eyelids began to twitch. After a moment, they opened. And she smiled.

"Keith?" she whispered. "Is that you?"