OK. Call this a "test run," if you will. I finally have some more time to work on this story, and I would like to present the prologue to you all and "see how it does." Your feedback has always been important to me, but now especially so.

You'll find parts of this piece's backbone are the same from the previous attempt, and yet, other parts are rather different. I don't want to give anything away, so you'll just have to take a chance on me and find out what happens.

Invictus: The Redux

Prologue

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

She traced each letter in this particular stanza of her favorite poem, as the ink sank into the pages of her bound journal. The sounds of scattered car horns, people laughing, and police sirens pierced the summer night. The faint dripping in the pipes by the radiator in her bedroom hit like a metronome.

She sighed, closed her journal shut. The back of her neck ached from being hunched over, and she rubbed it with the palm of her hand. She turned and saw her neatly made bed, eager to fall into it as the hour reached 2am. Though, it seemed that the night and the moon and the powers above had other plans, when a noise that resembled glass breaking echoed up from downstairs. With equal amounts of caution and curiosity, the 16 year old crept to the staircase, sat on the top step. Sure enough, plates were hitting the floor in a rhythm, and shards went everywhere. The culprit and his lumbering steps moved to the parlor, where he began opening doors and breaking more things.

After taking a deep, cleansing breath, she made her way downstairs to find him in front of her mother's curio. He was hunched over, and his large ratty pants hung loosely around his waist. He reeked of alcohol.

"What are you doing?"

He turned over, his eyes lost, distant, empty. He straightened up, held a glass figurine of Popeye the sailor that was her mother's favorite. In a sudden movement, he threw the figurine to the floor, and it smashed to pieces.

"Stop!" She jumped back to avoid the glass, but really wanted to lunge at him. "Why did you do that?!"

"She...she bankrupted me!"

"No she didn't." She ran up to him and tugged at his arm, begged for him to stop, but at 6'3, he towered over her. He placed his large, fat hand on her shoulder and pushed, sending her a few steps back. "Don't touch me!" He looked at her, and the corners of his dry lips began to twitch "She didn't bankrupt you. Maybe if you didn't spend so much goddamn money on booze and women, you wouldn't be so fucking broke."

Anger seeped into his brown eyes like a flood. He pointed his fat finger at her. He no longer wore his wedding band, but his hand was probably too swollen to wear it, anyway. "You shut the fuck up."

"No! I won't! You're the one breaking shit at two in the morning. You think wrecking her stuff is gonna lure her back here?! You're deluded."

"No, YOU are!" He shouted, sending chills down her neck. "You don't know why she left."

She scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "She left because of you."She looked him over, how his bare chest glistened with sweat, his bulged belly that made him waddle when he walked from all the excess weight. The hair atop his head was long, already almost fully gray because graying early ran in his family. Memories of her childhood ran through her head, as instances of nights reading together dissolved into him drooling in front of the television screen. "Because you're an EMBARRASSMENT!"

"You're the embarrassment!" he said, his drunken stupor causing him to nearly trip over his own feet and fall to the floor.

"That doesn't make any sense. Figures, since you're insanely drunk. So pathetic. Just go to sleep already, Dad."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Peyton walked up to the main entrance of the house she shared with Brooke, and she froze upon seeing who awaited her. "Oh my God..."

"Hey."

"Sophia, how'd you get here? Are you OK?!"

Sophia Bennett stood, shoved her journal in her backpack, and fell into Peyton's hug. "I'm fine now," she said, as she inhaled her comforting scent. "I should've called beforehand."

"You're my cousin," Peyton said, still in semi-disbelief that she was standing in front of her. She'd gotten so big, looked so mature. "You don't have to call." Peyton fished through her purse for her house keys. "Come, come in." She hurriedly opened the door, ushered Sophia inside. She illuminated the duplex in light, and she saw that Sophia seemed a bit wary as she set down her backpack and duffle bag. Peyton gestured to her couch. "Come sit. Can I get you something to drink? Water?"

"I'm good." Sophia sank into the couch cushions, rested her hands on her thighs. Her strawberry blonde hair fell past her shoulders now. Freckles dusted her face. Her eyes were a light green, a softer shade than Peyton's eyes. "So I'm guessing Uncle Larry didn't call you. Right?"

"Why would you say that?"

"Well for one, you would have known or had some inkling as to why I just appeared on your doorstep."

Peyton sat next to her cousin on the couch. "What happened?"

Sophia blew out a breath of air. "My dad and I got into an argument. Things escalated. He didn't hit me or touch me or anything," she added hurriedly. "But it was bad enough that I called Uncle Larry. Seeing as he's always on a boat somewhere, and doesn't really have a home, I thought it wouldn't accomplish much to go and see him."

"So you thought you'd come and see me?" Peyton finished.

Sophia blew out a breath of air. "Yes," she answered, her voice muted to a whisper. "I just can't stay there right now, Peyton. I was wondering if I could crash here for a while." She watched her cousin as she thought it over. "It's OK if I can't," she said. "I mean, no pressure at all. Seriously."

Peyton grabbed Sophia's hand, warm to the touch. "Of course you can stay," she said. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

Relief washed over Sophia's face. "Cool," she said. "Cool."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Do you remember my cousin Sophia? She's currently asleep in our living room. Just so you don't freak out when you see someone on the pull out bed.

So read the text sent to Brooke's phone as she spent yet another late night preparing for the opening of her first boutique in Tree Hill. So many things had to be done, and there wasn't a lot of time to do them in. Although, the text was enough to break her concentration and make her stop what she was doing. Shocked wasn't enough to describe what she was feeling, and she couldn't call Peyton because it was so late. Instead, she texted back her best friend with her usual amount of wit and cleverness:

OK. There'll be an explanation tomorrow, I'm assuming?

For the both of us.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Just as she expected, Peyton didn't sleep much the rest of the night. She tossed and turned, eyes opening every few minutes. It turned out that Larry had texted and called Peyton, but she didn't hear her phone go off in noisy TRIC. As she lay there, thoughts of Sophia filled her mind: their time together spent in New York City when Peyton was in high school and would babysit during some vacations; holidays; summers Sophia would come visit in Tree Hill.

When Peyton moved out to Los Angeles to intern with Sire Records, she didn't see Sophia as much, once in a while they would talk on the phone on Christmas or Thanksgiving, or on each other's birthdays. The guilt appeared every so often, she would admit. Of course, she craved a more than adequate explanation of why and how Sophia appeared on her doorstep, details included–but she didn't want to overwhelm her before she even settled in. Scenarios and imagined scenes of what occurred between Sophia and her father played through Peyton's head, each scene worse than the last.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

That morning, Sophia woke up to the sounds of the Keurig brewing a cup of coffee, and she vacated the couch bed to greet Peyton in the kitchen.

"Good morning," she said. "I'm sorry for waking you. Go back to sleep!"

"Don't worry about it." Sophia perched herself up on the counter stool, resting her elbows on the granite counter. "Got any extra coffee back there?"

"You drink coffee now?"

"Afraid so," Sophia said with a smirk. "You won't be corrupting me by giving me coffee; I promise. ….I'm already corrupted."

"Oh God," Peyton said, to the sounds of Sophia chuckling. She reached for the collection of Keurig pods next to the brewer and grabbed one, loaded it into the machine and grabbed a mug from the cabinet. As the coffee brewed, Peyton took a sip of her own beverage. "So."

"So," Sophia echoed. "What's up?"

"Are we gonna talk some more?" Peyton handed Sophia her mug of coffee so that the teenager could at least have some caffeine in her before they got into the big questions.

"About what?"

Peyton knew that her cousin was trying to appear nonchalant, and she wasn't having it. "Soph..."

"OK," Sophia breathed. "Sorry." She blew a breath of air onto her black coffee to cool it down. "What do you wanna know?"

Peyton swallowed. She heard the drip of the faucet water as it hit the sink below, the rumble of the ice maker in the freezer. Everyday sounds she often regarded as too ordinary were now pronounced, ominous even. "...What did you and your dad fight about?"

Sophia hung her head back, brushed a piece of her hair behind her right ear. "A lot." She swallowed, and added with a chilling coolness to her voice, "….You know my dad's an alcoholic, right?"

Her frankness was what shocked Peyton the most, not the fact that her uncle David Bennett had an abusive relationship with alcohol–of course she knew that. It was just one of those topics, those facts that remained under the surface that nobody discussed. Peyton honestly thought it was nonsense, but she remembered that her father Larry was always adamant about keeping it that way for some reason. She knew that her status as a teenager at the time left her ill-equipped to truly change the situation in any way. "I did know that," she finally said.

Sophia nodded. "For the longest time, I thought it was normal that my father spent almost every evening at our neighborhood shit hole drinking himself into a stupor. Normal.It wasn't until my freshman biology teacher–who taught me last year, I might add–sat me down and asked me what my dad was doing every night at a bar–we were pretty close, so she was allowed to ask me something like that–and I said to myself, oh fuck. That's...years of being accustomed and used to witnessing his rages, dealing with his emotional neglect…." She paused, and Peyton was hanging onto her every word. "You see how you're acting so shocked? It's because Uncle Larry wouldn't intervene or even discuss his loser brother-in-law."

"I'm not...I'm not shocked because of that, Sophia. I know my father kept things under the rug, and to be honest with you, I never agreed with how he handled it. I wish I could change things for you. Really."

"It's not your fault," she said. "It's my dad's. I just...got sick of it and needed a break, that's all." Sophia took another sip of her coffee. "What have you got planned for today, then?"

Slightly taken aback by Sophia's quick change of the subject, Peyton had to had regroup for a moment. The question was a tough one. Since quitting her job in LA before moving back home, Peyton hadn't really found an alternative. Thus, she had to be creative with how she occupied her days. "Job hunting."

"Fun," Sophia said. "I think I might go exploring for a bit."

A pair of hands reached around and covered Sophia's eyes. She patted them, felt the expensive rings and bracelets and said, "Brooke?" Sure enough when she spun around, Brooke stood in front her. "Hey!"

"How's it going?!" Brooke asked, looked Sophia over. "You look so grown up; my gosh."

"Things are alright," Sophia answered. "Just trying to survive high school."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

As Sophia went out the door to go explore Tree Hill, Brooke ended up inviting Peyton to go with her and look at spaces for rent for her new C/B boutique. As she waited for her in the passenger seat of her parked car, Peyton grabbed her cell from her purse and dialed her father.

"Hi honey."

"So were you ever planning on letting me know that Sophia was on her way to see me?" Peyton heard her father sigh on the other end.

"Peyton, I tried calling you the other night, but you didn't pick up or call me back until now."

"OK, fine. Were you ever planning on telling me that things were really bad with Uncle David?"

"I didn't know."

Peyton shook her head into the phone. "No. I don't believe you. You always knew he was an asshole, and you always knew he was an alcoholic and likely clinically depressed. You just never talked about it, and now look what's happened. Sophia's been displaced. She ran away from home because of his bullshit, and you don't seem to care."

"That's not true, and you know what? That's not fair, either. You think I liked that my sister stayed married to that loser? I talked to her about it several times, but how she handled it was ultimately her prerogative and nobody else's. I will always be here for Sophia. That's why I called you."

"….What are you saying?"

Larry sighed again, and the conversation came to a temporary lull. "Well…from the sound of things...I don't think she should go back home."

Peyton wiped her hand across her forehead. The silent breath that left from her lips was a long one. She was suddenly anxious, and her heart began to pound in her chest. The immensity of what she was about to embark upon placed her on the edge of an invisible precipice. She swallowed, heard it travel all the way down her throat. "...I don't either. Sophia can stay with me. At least until the end of the summer, and then…we can figure out what's next.

"Are you sure? This is a big responsibility."

"Yes, I'm sure, Dad. Sophia's family. I'm not going to abandon her."

"And what are we going to do about DC? Apparently he's still in Vermont for about a week or so, but he's going to be totally shocked to come back to New York and see that his sister isn't there."

"So he can come to Tree Hill from Vermont. I'm not going to keep them apart; that's insane."

"OK. I'll make a few calls."

As soon as Larry hung up the phone, Brooke climbed into the driver's seat. "Everything good?"

Peyton shook her head. "That was my dad. I called him about Sophia."

"And?"

Peyton rolled her eyes. "He claims he 'didn't know' about the situation with Sophia's dad. And then I talked to her some this morning…Brooke, I'm not really comfortable sending Sophia home right now."

"So…you want her to stay here?"

Peyton nodded. "At least until the end of the summer. If that's a problem, I totally understand–"

"Peyton, it's not a problem at all. Don't you dare think about moving out; I have the room and I bought this house for us to live in."

"Are you sure? Because having Sophia means having DC, too."

"There's room for him also. I love that kid. I love both of them."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The River Court hadn't changed in the two and a half years Peyton'd been in Los Angeles. The basketball hoops, while ratty, held a certain charm. The river running beside it was as calming as it ever was. As soon as Peyton stepped onto the tarmac, she entered a time capsule: back to high school, when everything was simpler...and she was in love.

The rhythmic sounds of a basketball hitting the ground below caused Peyton to turn around. There stood Lucas, who literally stopped short upon seeing her. He hadn't changed that much, save for the modest scruff on his face. Tee shirts were abandoned in favor of nice button downs, whose sleeves were rolled up at both elbows, whose top two buttons were undone and showed the smooth skin of his chest.

"Hi," she breathed out, her throat suddenly dry. "...How long's it been?"

He scoffed; his sarcastic, wan smile hurt her. "Two years." His basketball hugged his hip, frozen, just as they were that very moment.

"It's been longer than that," she said. She rubbed her left arm, as the slight breeze gave her a sudden chill. She let out a breath as the intensity of this moment, seeing her love after so long, overwhelmed her. The memories of how they'd left things didn't help either. She found herself advancing towards him, and despite everything the next words she spoke still rang true: "God, Luke, I missed you–"

She wasn't sure what to expect, but certainly not that he'd stick out his hand into the space between them, and move back. "I can't," he said. "I just can't."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Peyton was still reeling from her encounter with Lucas, and stayed put on the River Court as a result. She only vaguely noticed Brooke's car come crawling up to the court. "Thought you'd be here," Brooke said, her heels clacking against the pavement. She glanced over the faded signatures from their younger selves. "Seems like another life."

"It was for you. Brooke, I appreciate you coming back and everything, but considering the way your phone's been blowing up, you have a very busy, very important life to get back to."

"OK," Brooke said, in a tone that bore no argument. "I have a very important friend who needs me...but why'd you come home, Peyton?"

"….I guess I was looking for the inspiration I felt when we wrote our names here, ya know?...I was fearless then, Brooke."

"So what happened to that girl?"

Peyton breathed out, her shoulders slouched downward as she recalled her time in LA. "That girl became assistant to the assistant…"

"So, if you wanna be the girl you thought you could be back then, start a label. Do it yourself! I'm serious. Peyton, I want to invest in your label. I believe in you."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-