A/N: Started writing this yesterday, and it was meant to be a oneshot...Well, now it's edging on about 15,000 words, and I'm not done yet, so it's a chapter story. Won't be more than 8 chapters-ish.

Basically, I'm re-writing the show. Should be pretty self-explanatory.

----

They'd known each other forever. Really, as long as either of them could remember.

It started when they were just little kids. Their back yards faced one another, and her parents knew his mom and uncle, and there were countless photos of them doing all those cute little kid things together. He was two, and carefully holding the newborn little girl in his arms. She was three, and holding his hand as they walked down the sidewalk. They were seven and five, bundled up in scarves and mittens and sipping hot chocolate on the porch swing at the Roe home.

There was a little hole in the wooden fence that separated their yards; a knot that had somehow come loose, leaving the silver-dollar sized 'peephole' as they called it. Lucas would be laying on the grass near the fence, waiting for her to peer through, and he'd smile every time he saw that one green eye blinking at him through the fence.

She was five when he walked out one hot summer afternoon and saw a piece of paper rolled up and wedged in the peephole. He pulled it out, and in one of her childish drawings, he saw two figures. A boy with yellow hair, and a girl with yellow hair. Their hands were joined in the middle, and in the bottom left hand corner, she'd written just her name. He smiled and took that drawing inside, and his mom just chuckled and posted it on the fridge.

It stayed there. Hadn't moved since that day. The page yellowed and the colour faded, but that drawing wasn't taken down off the refrigerator door.

They grew tired with the peephole, and when Lucas was eight and Peyton was six, they jimmied one of the fence boards in the corner loose so that it swung back and forth. They always thought it was so sneaky, but Larry watched from his kitchen window, and he could only shake his head at the two of them. Kids will be kids, he thought.

Peyton would slip through the fence and lay with Lucas on the grass, her wild hair falling around her face, and her little denim shorts hitting her mid-thigh. Lucas would wear his basketball shorts and Michael Jordan tee shirt. They'd point out shapes in the clouds, but they were always silly things. Not just a dog or a car or a train. They'd pinpoint a specific breed, or a specific car, and they'd give the train a destination. She'd giggle when she said a cloud looked like Rocket, and the dog would come over and jump and play with the two kids. They both cried when that dog died.

Age was never an issue. Peyton was his friend, and Lucas didn't care that she was two years younger than him. He helped teach her to read, and she'd count his baskets at the River Court while Keith read the newspaper.

They were friends. Best friends. They'd camp out in either of their back yards, and they'd always end up on the grass outside their little two person tent. She'd slip into his sleeping bag, and they'd count the stars until they fell asleep.

"Luke," Peyton whispered one night, laying in her backyard. She was seven and Lucas was nine, and even though he probably should have been hanging out with the guys in his grade, he'd always make time for Peyton.

"Yeah?"

"We're best friends, right?" she asked innocently.

"Yeah," he answered, looking over at her.

"OK," she said simply. "Forever?"

"Forever," he echoed.

He held out his pinky, and she smiled as she looped her finger together with his. They each kissed the back of their thumbs - a real pinky promise, they'd always said - and they laughed together before looking back to the sky.

She fell asleep soon after, and he pulled the sleeping bag up to their chins. She was holding his hand between them, and he found himself frowning when she pulled it away.

They always woke with their backs to each other, and when Anna or Larry came to get Peyton, or Karen went to get Lucas, they'd just smile and chuckle at the two kids.

Childhood was a beautiful thing.

Peyton's was cut a bit short.

Tuesday was always Karen's day to pick the kids up from school. She had an extra staff member stay on Tuesday and Thursday, and Anna got the kids on Monday and Friday. Larry was in charge of Wednesday. Keith covered any changes. It was a system that had been in place since Peyton started school, and it worked well.

Usually.

Lucas had cut his hand on a rusty nail that was for some reason on the playground, and in a panic, Karen had rushed him to the emergency room to have it tended to and given his tetanus shot - which she just hadn't gotten around to taking him for.

She'd called Anna and regrettably said she wouldn't be able to get Peyton from school, and Anna insisted it was no problem. Keith was out of town or he would have helped out, but Anna could make it work.

Sirens were a rarity in that small town; emergencies didn't happen often, and when they did, everyone held their breath, waiting to hear who was the subject - no one liked the word 'victim'.

When Karen and Lucas were leaving the hospital and Anna Sawyer was rolled in on a stretcher, it was as though the world stopped.

Karen and Lucas rushed to the car, her clutching his hand the entire time, and rushed towards home. They passed the scene of the accident, and Karen bit back a sob when she saw the two mangled vehicles. Her best friend was in the hospital, and she had no idea what to do.

She parked on the street just as Larry was running out of the house, and Lucas watched as he took Peyton in his arms, holding her tightly before setting her in his truck.

Lucas watched his best friend, terror in her eyes, as he felt tears forming in his own.

Anna died four hours after the accident. Surgery would have been futile, and so Larry and his daughter sat at that bedside and simply waited for the woman's heart to stop. Karen couldn't imagine anything more horrific.

Larry was a mess. A stoic, angry mess. He could barely take care of himself, let alone his daughter, and while he couldn't say the words, Karen knew he was thankful for her help and support. They all knew Karen was hurting, too, but she wouldn't let that little girl go unattended for.

Peyton wouldn't talk to anyone. Not one word. Lucas didn't know what to do.

He slipped through the fence after the funeral. It was late, but Karen was busy helping Larry, and Keith was talking to a few mourners at the Roe home, and Lucas needed to see Peyton.

He walked past Larry, and the man offered only a small, single nod, as though that were his approval that Lucas trudge up the stairs to Peyton's bedroom. As though he knew that Lucas could help.

She was in her pajamas on her bed, clutching a worn brown teddy bear. It was quiet, and she had only her bedside lamp shining. Her hair was still perfectly braided like Karen had done for her that morning when both girls had tears in their eyes.

Lucas was just 10. He didn't know what to say, or what to do, or how to act, or how to treat Peyton.

So he just lay down on her bed next to her on his back, his hands clasped over his stomach. It was the same way she was laying. He thought she shouldn't have to lay like that alone.

They lay like that for a while. Just him and her in her room in their pajamas. Breathing in silence, breaths matching. She didn't move. She didn't put down her teddy bear. He used to make fun of her for still sleeping with it, but they both knew he was only joking.

"How's your hand?" she asked in a small voice, hoarse from crying.

"What?"

"Your hand. It looked gross," she said, looking over at him.

"It was. I had to have a needle. Six stitches," he explained.

"Ew."

"I know."

He turned his head and their eyes met, and he bit the inside of his lip to keep from crying. Her eyes were tired and red-rimmed, and her cheeks were puffy. He hated it. He really did.

"I'm glad you're OK," she said as a tear fell from her eye.

He didn't know what to say, and so when she reached for her bed sheet to wipe her face and rolled onto her side so she was looking at him, he just nodded. He took her hand in his and clasped their fingers together, and he watched the ceiling as she watched him.

"Hey, Peyt?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"OK," she said softly.

They both cried then, quiet tears that stained her pillows. They didn't care. They just lay there together with their hands joined and their hearts breaking.

When Karen climbed the stairs to take her boy home, she just couldn't bring herself to pull the kids apart. There they were, sleeping on that big double bed, and she knew somehow that they were helping each other through it, just by doing that very thing. She covered them over with a blanket and tugged the door mostly closed, and she told Larry to just send Lucas home in the morning.

Lucas stepped through the door about noon the next day, and Keith and Karen sat at the kitchen table, mugs of coffee cradled in their hands. They looked at Lucas, standing there in his plaid flannel pajamas, and he tried to smile. He just couldn't do it.

Karen was almost surprised when he walked towards her and wrapped his arms around her. Keith bowed his head, and Karen teared up a little as she held her son.

"It's not fair," he said. Karen ran her hand over his hair and pulled out the chair between she and Keith for Lucas to sit.

"I know, sweetie."

"She's just a kid," he said.

He was almost crying again, but there was a stern anger in his voice. Keith placed his hand on Lucas' shoulder, but didn't say a word. Both adults wanted to remind him that he was just a kid, too, but they knew what he was saying. He was just a little older than her, and she'd looked so fragile since the accident. And he looked out for her. She was his best friend.

And she really was just a kid.

"She'll be OK," Karen insisted. "We'll make sure of it."

He just nodded his head, and Karen stood, kissed his hair, and said she'd make him some cocoa.

When Peyton stepped through the kitchen door just minutes later, Karen gave a sympathetic smile and gestured for the girl to take a seat. Karen doled out extra marshmallows, all of them laughing when Keith insisted he needed some in his coffee and let Peyton drop them into his mug, and they spent their afternoon talking about anything but the person they'd all just lost.

Peyton was smiling for the first time in days. Lucas smiled, too.

----

"Lucas Scott, I hate you!"

"No, you don't!" he shouted back.

She let out a frustrated huff and stomped her foot on the ground. She threw her tube of Bonne Bell lip balm at him, making him cower away from him and hold his arms in front of his face in his defense. Just because she knew it'd make him angry, she picked up the book he'd been reading, pulled the bookmark from between the pages, and tucked the slim piece of paper into the back pocket of her jeans. She threw the book back onto his bed with force and it bounced a little bit. Lucas glared at her, but she didn't care.

"I hate you," she repeated.

It was a stupid, silly argument. They had them often. But those stupid, silly arguments were growing in intensity.

He'd blown her off after school that day. They were supposed to go to the record store like they did every Wednesday after classes let out, but he went to play basketball with the guys instead. Normally she didn't care.

Except it was the second week in a row that he'd skipped their Wednesday tradition, and he'd canceled plans the prior Sunday afternoon, too.

And Peyton didn't like it one bit.

"You're being a bitch," he said, reaching for his book and immediately trying to search for his place.

"What?" she asked, speaking at a dangerously low tone. "What did you just say?"

"I don't see what the big deal is," he said with a shrug of his shoulders.

"You just called me a bitch," she said, locking eyes with him.

This was when the age difference started to change them. The space between 11 and 13 was a big one. Lucas was almost in high school, and he started caring more about things like basketball and girls. Peyton was the skinny neighbour kid who still slept with her teddy bear - it was a gift from her mother, and she couldn't part with it yet.

"Don't say that word," he warned her.

"You did!"

"I'm older."

"So it's OK for you to be a jerk?" she asked. He shrugged his shoulder again and flopped down on his bed, showing no remorse for treating her like he was. "Fine. I'm leaving."

"Peyt."

"Don't!" she shouted. "I'm going to Brooke's."

She said it just to hurt him, and they both knew it. He'd expressed fears that the little brunette was taking his place as Peyton's best friend. The girls talked about things that Peyton couldn't talk about with Lucas - though there wasn't much the two blondes didn't share - and they spent every day at school together since they were in the same class.

Lucas hung out with a group of boys who played basketball and talked about girls, and one of those boys was his brother. They'd become close since starting the eighth grade. Both were on the school's basketball team, and they decided to put aside their differences, and they actually got along pretty well.

He and Peyton had been drifting apart just a little bit, and he supposed that may have been for the best. She needed friends her own age, and he needed the chance to experience all those teenaged experiences.

"Fine! Go to Brooke's," he spat angrily.

"Jealous?" she asked, raising her eyebrow.

She had one hand on her hip, and her curls were a little messy. She didn't wear makeup like the girls he went to school with, and she didn't wear clothes like those girls wore either. He kind of loved that about her.

"Does it matter?" He sat up and stared at her. "You're jealous of my friends."

"I don't care, Lucas. Hang out with whoever," she said, turning towards the door. "Maybe we're not best friends."

She left, and he felt like his heart had dropped into his stomach.

He wanted them to be best friends. He didn't want to fight with her. He didn't want her to hate him, or even say she did. He couldn't let her just leave like that and not do something about it.

When he pulled open his door and stepped onto the porch, he had every intention of sprinting to catch up with her as she walked down the sidewalk.

But there she was, sitting on the steps by his bedroom door with her legs pulled up to her chest.

"Don't call me names," she said softly.

"I'm sorry. That was...awful. I'm sorry." He sat down next to her, and he saw his bookmark sticking out of her back pocket, so he reached back and took it. She spun to look at him, wide eyed, as if to ask why his hand was anywhere near her behind. "My bookmark."

"Why did you say that?" she asked. "I just wanted to hang out."

"I know. I was a jerk," he said shamefully. "I didn't mean it."

"If you say that again, I'll..."

"I won't," he said quickly. "I promise, Peyton." She nodded her head and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder. "Are you going to Brooke's?"

"She's not even home," she admitted, and he laughed. She smiled, and he looked over just in time to catch it. "She knows Wednesday is my day with you, even if you forget."

"I didn't forget."

"It feels like you did."

"How could I forget about my best friend?" he asked, pulling her closer.

"You tell me," she mumbled.

"I can't. Because I can't forget about you. Therefore, I can't explain, and..."

"OK!" she said with a laugh. "I get it."

"Come on," he said, standing and pulling her up by her hand. "Let's go get ice cream."

"It's not even dinner yet."

"So? I owe you," he said with a shrug of his shoulders. He was already at the bottom of the steps, and she was still standing on the porch. "You coming, or what?"

She rolled her eyes dramatically, but skipped down the steps, and when she was walking next to him, he draped his arm over her shoulder again.

And then he did something she didn't expect. Something that made her feel a little funny. A new feeling in her stomach that she kind of liked.

He kissed her temple, right there on the sidewalk.

He'd never done anything like that before, not since they were little kids and he'd kiss her cheek or her hand as a joke or part of a game.

This kiss felt a little different. When she looked up at him, he just winked at her.

He started doing it a little more often, but still not frequently.

They'd be laying on the grass in her backyard, their hands joined, just like they always used to do. She'd say something goofy or something deep or something he deemed adorable, and he'd lean over and kiss her temple.

She liked it.

She had to believe he liked it, too.