Disclaimer: Mark Schwahn created the amazing world of Tree Hill. I don't own any of it.
Description: New to the life without a wife and mother Nathan and Jamie Scott try Vivian James's support group where they meet the Sawyer girls. The friendships formed will be more than thought possible when life calls to move on. AU NP friendship and NH LP romances.
A/N: Hi y'all! I've had a great time reading some incredible stories here and discussing One Tree Hill characters through reviews and private messages. A week ago I finally got a few ideas of my own stories and I'm trying out as a fan fiction author now as well. I haven't done anything like this before, so I'd love to hear your thoughts.
A gloomy look on Nathan Scott's face eased a little bit as he felt a small soft hand grab his big one. He looked down and his son Jamie looking scared. The almost four-year-old was begging for some reassurance with his eyes but trying his hardest to stay cool and brave. The sight felt heartbreaking and Nathan bent down to hug the boy. The little boy whispered into his ear that he wanted his mama, breaking his father's heart a little more. How do you explain to a kid that young that he just can't have his mommy the way he wants? Well, how do you explain it to him for the 50th time, when each of the earlier ones had not made the little boy properly understand that his mother was gone forever?
"I'm sorry, buddy. I'm here. And these people, although we don't know them yet, are probably very nice. You know all the kids with a dad here probably miss their mama as much as we miss yours. You might find a new friend," Nathan tried to come up with something encouraging to say. The truth was though that he, too, had only felt comfortable meeting lots of new people, when Brooke had been there with him.
After a moment of leaning on each other for comfort the two Scott men sat down on a couch and looked around the big room waiting to find out what this place was like.
"Alright, friends!" a middle aged woman raised her voice to get everyone's attention. "It's nice to see y'all here. Welcome to the Single Parent Families of Tree Hill support group. I see a couple of new faces. Welcome especially to you. I am Vivian James and I run this support group as well as many other related groups in the coastal North Carolina. These meetings are mostly quite informal. I'm just going to let you mingle as you want today. Play with your kids or share latest news with others here. The most important thing here is just to spend time and get to know with people who go through the same as you do. Here none of you are the freaks for having to raise your kids by yourselves or kids having to live with just one parent. But no more boring babbling, it's never done any good to anyone anyway."
"Okay, didn't expect that. So what do you wanna do buddy?" Nathan turned to Jamie.
The room was quickly filled with bubbly sounds of adults mingling and kids playing like they had known each other for years. Most likely they had. There were about twenty adults, mostly women and much older than Nathan. It seemed some of the adults had even more than one child with them. The kids were all ages, from newborns to young teenagers.
"I don't know…" Jamie said after checking out the crowd. But right then a little girl, just a toddler, ran towards them.
"Uh!" She said with determination, looking Jamie in the eyes and pointing at two women, the leader Vivian talking to a tall woman with wavy dark blonde hair.
Jamie looked at the girl with confusion. When she got no reaction out of him she reached for his hand, repeated the "uh" and guided Jamie towards the ladies she had pointed to.
Jamie gave his dad a look that begged Nathan to follow. He had been amused by the toddler's interaction with his son and with a huge smirk on his face Nathan rose and followed his son and the cute little girl.
Since her daughter had suddenly decided to take off, Peyton Sawyer had had a hard time focusing on her conversation with Vivian. She had managed to take a few quick looks over her shoulder to make sure her 18-month-old wasn't causing any trouble. Anyway she was very relieved when she heard a familiar 'uh' from right behind her.
"Hey baby! Where did you go? Did you find a new friend?" Peyton turned to her daughter.
"Uh!" She replied pointing at the very confused boy.
"Did my daughter drag you out here from something important? Ellie can be very, um, determined and she has a rather interesting logic, too," Peyton laughed. "I'm Peyton. Who are you?"
"I'm James Lucas Scott." Jamie responded and relaxed a lot by Peyton's friendliness. "But everyone calls me just Jamie."
"Well, that's a really cool name Jamie. You know Ellie's name is a little bit like yours. She's really Elizabeth Amelia Sawyer, but we all just call her Ellie." Peyton smiled and tried to lift her daughter up to her lap. Ellie on the other hand had a different plan and she just leaned to hug Jamie tight.
Nathan joined the group right when shocked and terrified Jamie realized that not only was this little girl now attached to him a complete stranger a little intimidating, but she was also a girl. Despite the great amusement Nathan got from the view, gave the little girl's mother a pleading look to help his son out.
"Come on Ellie, let Jamie breathe." Peyton laughed and took her very reluctant daughter to a safe few feet away from the little boy. "Are you new or have I just not noticed you here before?"
"Oh we're new, new to everything, really. I'm Nathan Scott and you already met my son Jamie."
"Peyton Sawyer," Peyton shook his hand.
"It's great to have you here Nathan and Jamie," Vivian shook hands with the two and continued giving very suggestive looks towards at times towards Nathan. "As you can see there aren't that that many men here. Please don't consider yourself a freak of nature because of that. We've had many men over the course of the years this group has existed. They just usually don't stick around for that long. It's not so much because they'd feel themselves uncomfortable with the female domination. But let's just say, with our male-female ratio men usually enjoy a lot of positive attention and don't stay single parents very long, if you know what I mean," for the last part Vivian winked at Peyton.
Peyton and Nathan looked at Vivian mouths open not knowing how to respond. Jamie and Ellie had started an intensive facial expression conversation and Peyton found a way out of the awkwardness by turning her attention to the kids. Nathan took notice of her move and cursed in his mind that Jamie was already three.
"Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I am certainly not looking for anyone. Chances are you're stuck with me and James."
"Well, I guess time will tell whether you are an exception to my rule or not," Vivian smirked. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to check up on Lisa and Stacey. But please help yourselves some lemonade. It was nice meeting you" With that she continued to some mothers on the other side of the room.
"Oh my god. Did she just try.."
"To play cupid and turn us into the single parent support group sweethearts of the year. Yeah. I had heard rumors about her matchmaking tendencies, but never before has she picked me as a half of her target." Peyton laughed. "I'm sorry about that by the way."
"Haha. Don't! Every great friendship needs a legendary start off story. I hope this is one of them." Nathan chuckled and then realized he had said quite much considering they had only just met. "I mean, I don't care about what Vivian said, but with everything that's going on. I could really use a friend and I guess I'm hoping you could be one."
"I think I'd like that." Peyton smiled.
In a comfortable silence they watched as Ellie and Jamie still continued entertaining each other by making faces and funny noises.
"How old is Jamie?" Peyton asked still concentrating on the kids' play.
"He'll turn four in a few months."
"You know, if they weren't one and three, I'd totally say our kids have been shamelessly flirting for quite a while now," Peyton chuckled and Nathan had to agree.
The two adults and two children continued getting to know each other for the next hour and for the first time that year life without the beloved wife and mother did not appear only as confusing and hurtful. For the first time the two Scott boys could almost forget the greatest loss they knew about. The hurt was there, but there was also hope. Hope of comfort and a possibility that happiness was not lost forever.
A/N: This is just a beginning of I'll try to update this as often as I can, but will make no promises. But please review and let me know if this is worth continuing anyway.