Disclaimer: I do not own nor do I have any affiliations with One Tree Hill
Chapter One
Everything had changed. Everything. Maybe it was the fact that Peyton was gone, maybe it was the little baby girl cradled in his arms, maybe it was him. Even so, when Lucas stepped into his home after returning from the hospital, everything had changed. The house did not seem like home anymore. It had lost its appeal, or its homey feel. Everything had changed. The silence that filled every corner was imminent, burning his heart. The music that Peyton used to play was turned off, the tv was not playing ESPN like he usually liked it to, and Peyton was not there to call out to him when he opened the door.
Everything had changed.
After shutting the door, he looked down at the sleeping baby in his arms. Already, she looked exactly like Peyton. Just as her life, too, he thought, would be like Peyton's-motherless. He wondered again for the thousandth time if he would be able to be a good father, a father Peyton would have wanted him to be. And for the thousandth time, the ping of inadequacy hit his heart. Lucas walked to the room designated for the baby and set her in her crib, wrapping all the blankets Brooke had made around her. Quickly and quietly stepping out the room, he left the door slightly open behind him before sitting down at the kitchen table.
He laid his head in his hands, tears slowly falling from his eyes. He was mad. He was shaking from all the anger inside of him. How could this happen? She promised, dammit, she promised! She promised she would make it out of this, he thought bitterly to himself. He banged his fist on the table, sobbing. He just couldn't understand what Peyton did to deserve all of this. Nothing, he told himself, nothing at all. She was a good person and dammit she would've been a great mother. Now, she was ripped from the world, too soon.
He just wondered how the world was supposed to continue with Peyton gone.