A/N: Hey hey everybody. I am Veronique (GirlinTheCafe) but most of you probably know that already. Why this author's note? First, this is a new story so ... got some explaining to do.

For everyone who hasn't read anything of me, there's something you need to know. I am from Belgium, from the Flanders, so I speak Dutch in daily life and English is only a language I learn in school (and this year for the 4th year already). So I know it's full of mistakes and grammar and tenses are a horrible mess. Forgive me, I am trying my best for all of you. That brings me to another point. If someone feels like being a beta-reader for this story ... let me know.

Also, I don't know the first thing about rathings, I know M-rated means mostly smutt, so if after reading this, someone can give me what the best type of rathing would be, let me know...

So like I mentioned before, this is a new story. Totally new from me. It's my first fanfiction writing for another couple than Lucas Scott&Peyton Sawyer, so I'm still gettting used to it. I actually started writing this a month ago, one night/morning it just flew into my head and I always had a special thing for the thought of Peyton&Cooper. And since I don't think there are many stories about them, I am more as happy to write one.

Even I don't know what I am doing, I told myself: Veronique, it's school again, you have two stories in progress, you have various ideas for one-shots, you promised someone a special one-shot before summer break was over, and you didn't make it (Sorry Petra, that one-shot is going to be your birthday present, I promise baby girl. I know I am bad since I promised you I would write it for your grades, and that was in June, and now it's going to be your birthday present and your birthday is in January...I am selfish, again I am sorry) and I am trying to start up a writing project beside my fanfiction work, so I told myself I would slow my fanfiction work down. Which like you all see, isn't happening ... (I even have another idea for a cross over story in mind, but that's going to have to wait)

What you need to know about this story:

Title: Coming To Terms (inspired by&named after the amazing 'Carolina Liar' song, and all the One Tree Hill-fans know it from the season 6 promo) & Pairing: Peyton&Nathan (Pathan), Peyton&Cooper (Ceyton, sorry, don't know a better name for it, if you have better one let me know) & Season: before season 1, so no Leyton&Naley&Brucas-vibes in here, sorry (or not for now at least) & What else you need to know: I don't have any idea when the next update will be, I don't actually know what will come after this, I just needed to get this out of my system (I actually was working on a new chapter for 'Chicago Is So Two Years Ago' but knew it wouldn't be finished today and editted, but it's probably up here in another week. But I just wanted to give you something, and since this was begging for attention...) If you have ideas, you also can let me know, I am open for anything.

I am sorry for the awefully long author's note, I would totally understand that you would have skipped it or would close the window after my dragging ... but hopefully you don't, I hope this is worth reading. (Lol, it's more A/N than chapter in here ...)

Much love, Veronique

Running To Stand Still

"I hate you!" A vague but sharp cry sheared through Cooper's ears as a welcoming message when he opened the front door of his sister's house.

He wasn't surprised. This wasn't the first time he was greeted this way in this home, probably not even the last.

Cooper Lee barely visited his sister in Tree Hill, but every time he was there, he had been a witness of a fight between his sister's son Nathan Scott and his girlfriend Peyton Sawyer.

Even Nathan was his favourite nephew, he couldn't agree with the way the young boy lived. He was so arrogant and egoistic and so going into the wrong direction. But who's fault was that? You can guess three times.

1)Dan

2)'Son of a Bitch'

3)Scott

Yep, totally right.

Cooper always found it hard to explain why Nathan was his favourite nephew when the only thing the kid did was behave badly. But Cooper saw something in Nathan, a whole other personality than his bad boy one trapped between his bones. His uncle saw in Nathan a great friend, a loving man, a caring father. He saw it all. If you only gave Nathan Royal Scott the chance to develop himself into that precious man he could be. The world would be a better pace than it was today.

But unfortunately Nathan was still this jerk who hurt his beautiful girlfriend Peyton Elizabeth Sawyer.

There was something about Peyton Sawyer that Cooper liked.

Something about the curly blonde attracted him.

Was it her slender and nicely developed body? It was feminine but still a little rough around the edges. But there was no doubt that she would grow for pretty teenager into a gorgeous woman.

Or her rebellious blonde curls? So soft and wild.

Were it her hazel eyes that were like a window into her soul? The ink black pupils embraced by light brown which was embraced by pale green?

Were it her deep pink lips that were forced into many different forms when she spoke?



Or was it her face, the mixture of beautiful and broken? It was like a broken frame of a family photo. Happy but fake, secrets just behind a thin layer.

It definitely was her face above everything else.

But not only her looks got him but her personality did something to him too.

She was dirty-mouthed in more than one way he had noticed. And he liked that in a girl. Hell he did. It turned him on. Like that one time he had stopped by Nathan's door to ask him something and he had heard noises inside. Unmistakable noises of two teenagers playing it dirty.

But beside that she was also kind in her own way and very amusing.

Yes, Peyton Sawyer was a girl Cooper Lee would fall in love with if he was younger, or she was older. He had already wondered a few times why she wasn't. Why wasn't there a girl like her that had his age? Than he would do everything to let his bachelor life behind. He would spend a whole lifetime to unravel her mystery. For a girl like Peyton Elizabeth Sawyer, he would do anything. Everything.

But what was he thinking? First, the girl was only sixteen and he was like almost twice her age. Second, there was this unwritten rule about uncles fantasizing about their nephew's propriety. Or at least that's the way how Nathan always treated her. He handled her the same way than he did with his propriety, cold and not caring if it got broken.

But this thought were innocent right? He fantasised about every pretty face that he came across. About how it would with that girl or that woman. How it was to 'play family'. Being a bachelor had so many benefits but it ever had to stop. The way he lived couldn't last forever, he was well aware of that.

The advantages would grow into disadvantages once he would pass this certain point. But when would he come across that point? One day it still seemed another lifetime away, when he looked into mirror admiring his youthful face, his blue eyes never so alive. But another day it threatened to knock on his door when that same face began to show the first signs of old age and the same pair of blue eyes seemed to lose their sparkle.

The truth was he was afraid of every sign that told him he was nearing that certain moment. Their was so much energy in his body. In his head he felt like a twenty-one year old. Like a boy that just had lost the chains of the law and was ready to discover the world. All this places his still had to see, all this people he still had to meet … What if he couldn't give that up? What if he could never settle down?

He was so deeply lost in his thoughts that he didn't notice he stood at the beginning of the stairs. But he soon noticed when a certain blonde came rushing down followed by her heavy sobs.



Blinded by her bitter tears she pumped into the strong figure of Cooper.

"Ow!" Escaped his mouth by the sudden force of her shuddering against his chest. The exclamation that followed out of Peyton's mouth was a lot less innocent.

"Are you okay?" Cooper asked while gently taking a hold of her arms in reflex. No verbal response followed, only the jerking of her arms to get herself free from his grip. "Peyton?" Another yanking movement and her arm was free. With her eyes on the floor she rushed out of the door.

Normally he would have let her go. Ignoring their son's/nephew's/grandson's screw ups for everything beside basketball was very familiar in the Scott family. But something inside of Cooper snapped. He just couldn't let her go. The feeling was being amplified by the fact that water was whirling against the windows. Wind was whistling through the dark air. When he had come in minutes before, it had been already raining a little outside, but the pounding noise against the glass told him it was almost storming now.

He rushed after her, seeing how she furiously tried to get her car door to open but it didn't obey. Her various curses were smothered by the rain that clanked against the ground.

"Peyton!" He yelled but the strength of his voice was smashed down by the rain. He yelled for the second time, much louder this time. Peyton must have heard him. Her shoulder shrugged in an uncomfortable way. She simply was ignoring him and Cooper wasn't someone who let that happen, not under any circumstance.

Not caring if he got soaked too, he flew through the cold rain.

"Peyton?!" Blindly he grabbed her arm, causing the young girl to jump lightly from the surprise. Again she fought his grip but this time he didn't tolerate her fighting back. Determined to make her listen to him, he picked her up, not caring about her screaming and punching and kicking.

"What the fuck Cooper?!" She screamed when he had putted her down on the solid floor of the Scott's house hallway again.

"Looks like some young lady has a dirty mouth." Cooper said on a stern tone.

"Who the fuck cares anyway? Just let me go home." She said when his hand still rested atop of her soaked jacket.

"Peyton, I am not letting you drive." He simply said, making her go from angry to furious.

"Why not?" She snapped, her hazel eyes turned surprisingly dark.



"First. I didn't you notice it's storming out there? If you didn't, you're cloths did. Second, you're upset." He said, his other hand finding a place on her other arm.

"I am not upset!" She screamed irritated by the fact he didn't leave her alone. But Cooper could see something break inside her sad eyes when her voice died.

"What happened upstairs with Nathan, Peyton?" He softly asked. And out of the blue the girl began to sob, tears running over her pale cheeks, ruining her make up fully.

"Come here." He swayed his left arm around her fragile shoulders and guided her to the downstairs guest room where he currently stayed.

She heard his voice tell her to make herself comfortable through her sobs. Uncomfortable she sat down on the bed, shivering when the cold of her wet cloths hit her. In the meantime Cooper closed the door behind them and unconsciously locked it too. Reflex, even he was alone in the house since Dan and Deb were out and Nathan would probably assume Peyton was away.

"Poor girl." He said while walking over to her. "You must be freezing." He whispered when he cowered down in front of her. "Let me get you some nice dry cloths." And before she could even protest he disappeared to the adjacent guest bathroom.

"Here." He threw a big, soft, grey towel to her. Still uncomfortable with the situation, Peyton began to unzip her wet jacket. Luckily for her, the green tee with a big V-neck underneath it was barely wet. Even through she felt very bare because of the fact it didn't leave that much to Cooper's imagination anymore. But Cooper didn't leave anything to her imagination at all when he decided to strip himself from his sweater and his black wife beater rode up enough to see his six pack. For some sort of reason her vision wasn't blurred by tears anymore. Maybe they had damped because for some reason the temperature of the air had heated up …

"Put this on." In his big hands, Cooper held a black hoodie. "I don't want you to catch a cold." A heart-warming smile followed. His voice sounded as comforting as the warmth that the hoodie brought her.

"Thanks." She shyly whispered, intensely happy with the fact she could hide her bareness from his eyes. Suddenly she wondered why she always wore such revealing cloths. Why she wore tops and tees that only covered until a belly button, showed a nice look into her cleavage, revealed more skin than anyone actually should see at some places. Her skirts were so short that she shouldn't bend down, only if she wanted to give a peep show for anyone in her near proximity.

Was it because she had no mother or father to tell her, her clothing style was inappropriate for a sixteen year old girl? Or did she just like to be bold? Maybe because Brooke wore even more revealing cloths and both girls always shopped together? Because the cloths turned Nathan on?



She was so lost in her various thought that she didn't her the creaking noises of the mattress when Cooper went to sit down beside her in silence.

He had to catch his breath, the girl was more beautiful than he had realised. He had never got to chance to see her from this close and pay attention. Her profile was simply amazing, the soft curves of her cheeks and chin.

Without he even wanted it, his senses were seduced to feel her the soft skin of her face. Peyton snapped out of her thoughts and looked at the older man with wide eyes. She didn't know what to do, how to react, how to feel for a moment until Cooper's words stole her attention away from her mixing feelings.

"Why were you and Nathan fighting?" He asked the blonde teenager again. He immediately regretted it when he saw her hazel eyes get teary. She sniffed and the first tear escaped.

"You can tell me Peyton. I won't tell anyone." His voice sounded sugar sweet. Cooper took the opportunity to gently tuck a wild curl behind her ear.

Her feeling began to fight. Should she really tell her boyfriend's uncle what they had been fighting about? She would rather tell Brooke, but she wouldn't understand. Maybe he would, since he was older, and at this moment, he was the nicest person on earth.

"He-he." She began, stumbling. "He wanted to tape us-" She got stuck again when the sobbing came back. "He wanted to tape us having sex." She managed to bring out.

Cooper didn't know how to react. The children were only sixteen, what was going on in that head of his nephew? He was too young for this, she was too young for this, they were much too young for any of this kind of 'games' at all?

"He called me a whore because I didn't want to." She cried and clenched her hands full with dark grey tee he had put on earlier.

"Peyton." His voice overflowed her. "You're not a whore." It soaked her.

"He said I looked like one and acted like one too." She mumbled in chest.

"Peyton Sawyer." Cooper forced her to look at him by gently taking a hold of her chin. "Don't ever believe you are." He whispered to her while whipping her tears away with his thumb. "You're simply beautiful."

His voice drowned her.

Her noise tickled when she breathed in his scent, his chest was like a biggest pillow. And suddenly it was away.

Confused she looked up and found him filling two glasses.

"Drink up." He said and handed her one of the tumblers. She carefully took a sip.

"What's that?" She said after making an ugly face because of the strong taste that flooded her taste.

"Tequila. And don't say you don't drink alcohol. We both know better than that." Cooper said.

"Cheers." He said.

"Cheers." She followed before their glasses met for a moment.

After one tumbler followed number two and number two turned into three.

She felt how her eyelids got so heavy, she couldn't do anything else than close them when her ears were filled with the comforting words that rolled from his sensual lips and the excited, steady beating of his heart. The last thing she saw was a look in Cooper's eyes filled with an element of a feeling worth fighting for. A feeling Peyton hoped that one day, Nathan or someone else hopefully would desire for her.