A/N: This is going to be my first longer LP story. I know it starts off kind of dark in tone, but it'll brighten up at times as it goes, I promise. I do love my angst and drama though. I'm kind of trying to improve my writing at the moment, so while reviews aren't essential they're always very welcome and they'll probably excite me and motivate me to update sooner. Anyway enjoy :).
Chapter 1: My Weakness is My Fear
There's certain moments in your life when you're never quite sure what in the world is going on, or quite what the universe is up to. It can seem like either things are just against you, or perhaps somebody is just messing with you, like some playing piece in a game of monopoly. Today was one of those days for Lucas Scott.
He had come into work exhausted from another restless night, unable to sleep and turning from one side of the bed to the next, searching for any comfort he could find. Sleep seemed like an impossible dream that that he could almost touch, but would never quite attain. Sat at his desk preparing for the day ahead, he had rubbed his eyes hoping to feel any sense of awareness. The thought of his espresso was all that sustained him and gave him a belief that he would make it through the day.
The life Lucas had once pictured for himself was not this, not the nine to five sat behind a desk, feeling like his life's dreams had passed him by. He liked his job, but it was so much short of what he had once thought the world might have to offer and every day that passed, he felt his sense of optimism drain away just that little bit further. Still after the events of the past few years, any sense of contentment or of taking joy in simple pleasures could seem a relief. Life had always been so complicated and for just once, he prayed for things to stay on an even keel, but it seemed like today that would obviously be too much to ask.
It seemed the universe was having one of its days where it found amusement in toying with him. When he had buzzed his secretary to have her show in his nine o'clock appointment, he had been stunned to see the person now stood before him. Five years had passed and still the very sight of her made his heartbeat seem to quicken, nothing had changed. Lucas still found himself unable to stop from quickly scanning her long shapely legs, before almost losing himself in those deep green eyes of hers, eyes that he still knew every detail of and could still point out the tiny flecks of brown in. Her blonde hair now darker and straighter than he remembered seemed to reflect the distressed look on her face. He considered her stood there and wondered why. Why would the world torture him like this again and why would she be his nine o'clock? It didn't make any sense.
That day five years ago, the day he married Lindsey, Peyton left town and never returned. Not Brooke, Haley, Nathan, or anyone else in Tree Hill had heard from her since that day. It was like she had simply ceased to exist and it was that day he traced the path of his life back to and wondered where it had all gone wrong.
The first year of marriage to Lindsey had brought nothing but wedded bliss, but gradually as the honeymoon period faded, it seemed like all they would do is talk about work. The book he had written and had so long denied could ever be about Peyton, had been a failure. Lindsey blamed him for his denials and they both knew that a story about a scientist looking for a comet would not catch the public's attention. People wanted to hope for something more, they wanted meaning and desires, and the chance to dream. For so long he had denied himself that and Lucas knew now he had paid the price.
The words simply would not come to him after that, everything had been locked away and as any hope of a literary career faded, the bitterness started to grow. He could find no happiness in the simple things and there was a piece missing from his life, a piece he had never dared admit he had come to need, just to function normally. Lindsey would never let that go, every day Peyton's name was brought up and every day he had denied it until finally he had snapped. One night he had cleared out some old things and came across that old box, the one he had always hidden so well from everyone, the one he dared not let anyone see. Opening it he recaptured just a few of those old memories and felt his first genuine smile appear, for what had seemed like years.
That night he finally opened his laptop and found words were there again, they were all there just waiting to be written. All he had to do was start typing, but something stopped him and he knew what he had felt was guilt, a guilt for betraying Lindsey in some way. It would be the night he found himself unable to say much of anything to her, but would manage to end his marriage with one simple word. Lindsey returned home a day early and found the box on their kitchen table, its contents spilled out everywhere. The rest seemed like a blur as she had screamed at him for not loving her enough; the only things he now remembered were her shouting and his one word answer.
"I find you with your laptop open and you're going to write again, you never could, but one look at her and it's all there right in front of you." Her voice was strained in anguish as tears ran freely down her cheeks and Lucas had no reply.
"I can't believe you kept that stuff, I know what she meant to you, but you have to let it go, we're married. I'm supposed to be the person you keep a box of things for." Lindsey's voice trailed off before she asked that final question that stuck with him so vividly.
"Can you ever see yourself keeping a box like that for me?" She sat down beside him on the bed and patiently awaited his answer. It was an answer he still could not believe he had uttered, something that he did not even want to say, yet there was such a subconscious truth to it that it slipped before he could stop himself.
"No." It was the word almost inaudibly spoken that brought his marriage crashing down. Lindsey walked out silently and after that he had just followed the paths blindly through his life.
First it was divorce and then it was a career change. It had seemed like all through his life he had solved everyone else's problems and he was good at it. He could solve anyone's problems, but not his own. With that in mind he had trained as a therapist and now here he was, sat in an office, finding the reality of hearing everyone complain was a grinding boredom. All he had managed to achieve was to make his lack of ability so fix his own life more evident.
The beautiful blonde stood before him represented a curve ball, the risk of more agony and yet he found that he stood up smiling, preparing to greet her, knowing that she could not truly be his nine o'clock.
Peyton cursed life for doing this to her, for bringing her to this office and putting Lucas Scott in front of her. Surely it was a cruel engineered game in the twisted maze that represented her life. So long the running away had continued and the sense of numbness she felt along with that brought her an ability to function. Those intense blue eyes and his smile always seemed to crack her will instantly, but there was no way that could be allowed any longer. Survival had its price and so far it had been avoiding everyone in her past.
Of any therapist she could have, it had to be him; someone that it shocked her to even believe was a therapist, let alone hers. When Peyton had picked up her orders to come here three times a week, she did not even look at the name of the person she would be seeing. It would just be another nameless face that thought they understood her problems, thought that they could fix her like some banged up old chevy. Peyton knew there would be no way for this to work and hopefully she could leave unscathed before asking for a different therapist.
Leaving Tree Hill had taken her to career highs she had never dreamed of, but it was all empty. Every memory was another that she could no longer share with the people she cared about and yet she counted that a blessing. Thinking of that town now was too hard, everything always came back to Lucas in some way, even that last soft touch of his lips on hers, a vivid memory that she could not shift.
LA and then New York had beckoned as Peyton opened new offices, signed new bands and toured around the world to her hearts content and yet nothing could bring a genuine smile for her any longer. No man who tried was ever enough and some of the men who wanted to try had made her flinch. One such man tried far too hard and it was a night she could never quite scrape out from her memory. It was a feeling that made her feel like a lobotomy would be worth the chance to forget.
Pushing her against the wall of a club's back room, he would not let her resist, twice she had tried to say no and push him off, but the look in his eyes told her he would not be denied. Furiously she had kicked out, tried to bite or punch him, but so drunkenly rampaging was he that nothing seemed to work. He covered her mouth and seemed to take even more delight in the fact she was fighting. Panicking with every last bit of resistance, she reached out feeling for anything within her grasp, praying for anything that would help stop this surreal madness. Feeling her fingers clutch to something, she grabbed for it and swung it at his head. It seemed instantly it was over, the sound of a loud crack seemed to echo round the room as he dropped to floor. The blood ran from his head as he went limp. Peyton knew instantly she had killed him and panicking at that moment had made what she had thought of self pityingly as an empty life, seem like a dream compared to what she would later experience. The marble ash tray dropped from her hands, as she looked at them now covered in blood.
Running away she had left him, only for the body to be left undiscovered for ten days, just long enough to leave her looking guilty. They could not prove the rape, but they could prove her assault. Forced to plead guilty, she had taken her manslaughter charge and experienced three years of pure hell. Prison movies she had thought always dramatised things, but as the days of fear clocked up, Peyton now felt they had grossly under exaggerated. Not a day went by without fear of knives, drug carrying or physical abuse. It really was her idea of hell and left her dying to experience even the very worst of her bad days, before being stuck in there. The day of her release she had cried so long she could barely walk out, no one had talked to her, or at least really talked to her in that time and she was determined they would never see her like that. Peyton Sawyer had killed someone and she felt nothing but a sense of worthless shame.
Standing here now in the knowledge that Lucas would have her file, and could read what she had done, was horrific. She couldn't possibly make him understand and it took her all her willpower to stop from running out of the room. Even now, something in those eyes of his and that smile held her here, as if momentarily frozen.
"Peyton" Lucas said, sounding confused and interrupting her momentary stunned trance. "What are you doing here? It's…It's nice to see you but I have a nine o'clock."
He hadn't read her file yet. Peyton was feeling shaky and confused, almost unable to move. How could she possibly explain to him what had happened? Nobody would ever believe her; forever she would be the girl who killed someone. Unable to speak or even fashion any kind of response she turned her back.
"Peyton?" He felt mystified repeating himself and receiving no response.
Lucas was deeply confused and he knew she must be severely hurting over something. What could bring her here though after five years and why would she come to him now after all this time? All of this troubled him, but he knew what he felt he should do, the feeling that automatically came at moments like these. Slowly he walked up to her, gently placing his hands on her to get her attention. A hug was something maybe they could both use right now, and Peyton certainly needed one. It brought back so many memories that he almost hesitated, but he felt this moment had to be more important than anything else they had going on.
"Don't touch me." Peyton suddenly yelled as she suddenly jumped back away from him. She pushed her head down into her own chest to stare at the floor.
"Peyton I…what's wrong. I just." He didn't know what to say, this was all too strange and something weird was definitely going on here. "Why are you here?" It was the only question he had left.
"Apparently I'm here to see you" she snapped "as if life hasn't quite enjoyed torturing me enough yet."
Lucas looked back at his desk to the files he had not yet had time to read and wondered at what had brought her here. Fearfully he looked through the new case files he had been provided with and found the one he was still shocked to see labelled Peyton Elizabeth Sawyer. Opening it up he looked on in horror at the details that were most obvious. It could not be true, she had killed someone, but she wouldn't. She couldn't. Peyton was still the greatest person he knew.
Looking up he noticed she had turned her back again, almost hiding in fear of what he would discover.
"Peyton how…what…You can't have. It has to be some kind of mistake" Every sentence in his head was a jumbled mess as he stuttered through what he wanted to say. "You pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Why?"
"I killed him Lucas, that's why. That's all anybody cares about. He's dead and it's my fault." Her voice was still approaching a shout and it hurt him to see her like this. Even during the bad times he had always been able to do something, but standing here now he felt powerless.
"It can't be that simple." Lucas said almost breathlessly in disbelief. "Please just talk to me. Tell me what happened."
Her next words were spoken so softly he almost struggled to hear them. "I was raped ok, I was raped and they didn't care. All they cared about was that the guy was dead and I did it. I just wanna go back, just let me go back. Let me take it all back."
Lucas could hear her sobs and all he could do was stand frozen. So much time had passed and too much had happened. Seeing her like this was an experience that hurt him more than anything he had seen in the past five years, all he wanted to do was help and he knew in these situations it could be impossible. His training told him to take a step back. She would need somebody else to talk to and somebody that could impartially help her through this.
It was the first time she had ever uttered those words. There was a freedom to letting them out and telling someone, but now she wished she could have just kept her mouth shut. Lucas was stood behind her and it would now be pity he was feeling, not a genuine care for her, but the pity people felt whenever someone confessed a tragic event. So badly Peyton had wanted to accept his hug and yet she had flinched back from it, as she had from any man since that day. That touch, that force and that lack of power to fight, even for that few seconds she had been violated still stung. The prison had only made her more cautious of human contact and she had allowed no one to touch her in years.
Turning around she saw the tears in Lucas' eyes. The sight hit her hard; it was the first sense of genuine human compassion she had felt since leaving Tree Hill. He always had that affect on her and it stirred so many memories. There was no pity in him and no contempt, only the warmth she had always felt from him every day they had spent together.
Looking into his eyes, she felt herself willing him to act next, to know what to do and somehow take this pain away. Something had to make it go away; something had to give her hope for a singular better moment than the ones of the past three years.
When Peyton had turned around, the look he had felt from her called to him. Lucas knew what he wanted now, wanted for both of them and had wanted for longer than he could have known. It was unprofessional and went against everything he had been taught about therapy. She had flinched back from him before, but the look they now shared felt different, a shift had occurred. It was a look they always shared, an unspoken promise to each other they had always had that help would always be there when they needed it.
Slowly he approached her, not wanting to startle her still shaken form. Even now in these times, he noticed how impossibly beautiful she was, marvelling at the idiocy of the rest of the world's inability to see the person she was. Drawing ever closer time seemed to slow, as he opened his arms.
Time felt at a standstill as she saw him approach and it left her in a daze of unreality. Suddenly the ground beneath her feet seemed to shift as she awoke to the reality of Lucas' arms wrapped so tightly around her. Peyton felt momentarily claustrophobic and wanted to escape, but let it pass as she felt the comfort and warmth of his embrace. At first unable to respond, she now wrapped her arms as tightly around him as she could manage and never wanted to let go. She buried her head gently into his shoulder unable to stop herself sobbing, feeling at once pure despair and pure joy at the only person's touch she had ever wanted to feel since that awful day.
"It's gonna be ok Peyton." Lucas whispered gently. "We'll figure this out, it's gonna be ok."