I was feeling evil, so this is a short chapter because of where I wanted to cut it at… I hope you're enjoying…
PS… to my reviewers… I have a few things to say…
First of all, thanks for welcoming me back, cause it really does make me smile…
Bendicida82—you and I are fighting, cause I want an update of The Return of Brooke Davis… PLEASE!
Juzzy88- I haven't decided… and I don't really think I'm going to go into that kind of detail… however I was looking up if it was even possible for Peyton to get pregnant with all of Luke's issues and medications. Just cause I'm like that!
Anyways, review if you'd like, cause I think it's a blast!
"Peyton?" she says, opening the door as I rush past her and into the kitchen to make sure that Nathan and Jamie weren't in there.
"I need you to tell me."
"You need me to tell you what?" she asks, totally confused by the bursting through the front door.
"I need a timeline."
"No." she says, walking around me to start busying herself with cleaning an already spotless kitchen.
"Haley… please."
She sees the tears forming in my eyes just as Nathan walks into the room looking for a glass of water.
"What's up, Peyton?" he asks, not glancing up, and not noticing the weight in the room until he does just that and looks between Haley and I.
"Haley…" I say, with tears clouding my vision.
"No. You told me no, so I can't…"
"I need to know!" I practically scream at her unflinching expression.
"Why?"
"Because… I just need to know."
"I'm not doing this Peyton, we had a deal."
"What the hell is going on?" Nathan finally says, not understanding why I was in his kitchen crying at eight o'clock in the morning, and totally confused by his wife's behavior.
"August. I just need to know if August is a possibility." I finally say, still not revealing why I came to Nathan, and still attempting to get an answer out of Haley.
"August?" Nathan starts, again confused, "Peyton, that's like seven months away."
"Six and a half." I say, not bothering to glance away from Haley.
When I correct Nathan, I can see Haley attempting to make sense of my request, and I know it the instant she realizes why I need to know, "You're pregnant."
"I need to know." I say as some last attempt to reason with her, begging… pleading for an answer.
"Wait, you're pregnant!" Nathan says, running over to a crying me who is still trying to catch her breath from letting the news get out and giving me a hug, "Oh man! I have to congratulate Luke!"
"No! Nathan, Lucas doesn't know!" I scream as I see him running towards the phone.
He stops before turning around and looking between Haley and I again.
"Then why are you over here?"
It takes me a minute before I can answer his question, but when I do it is again completely directed at Haley, "Because I need to know if I'm going to tell him or not."
"Peyton, you aren't making any sense."
"Haley… August."
I barely see it, but the gentle shake of her head is there and the toast I had from this morning decides that it's going to make an appearance again.
Nathan is the one knocking on the bathroom door to see if I'm all right, holding out a glass of water to me.
"I'm fine."
"Yeah, right Sawyer… like I'm going to believe that."
Mine and Nathan's relationship has always been an odd one. After he and Haley got together, it was like he was a big brother that I couldn't get rid of. He and Lucas were forever my protectors. They were my knights in shining armor.
"Are you going to explain to me why my wife is crying in the kitchen and you're losing your breakfast in my bathroom?"
"Morning sickness?" I say, pushing him out of the way as I move to stand up from my spot near the toilet.
"Try again."
"He's dying. Lucas." I tell him, nearly as simply as it was told to me.
"What?" he says, obviously taken aback by the statement. So much so that when I leave the bathroom, he doesn't follow for a few minutes.
When I reach the kitchen and sit down without another word, Nathan turns to his wife. "Haley, is this true?"
She nods with the tear tracks still fresh on her cheeks.
"You've known and you didn't say anything to me?" Nathan says, starting to get angry, and I can tell that Haley doesn't need this again so soon after me yelling at her for the same.
"Nathan, I just found out a month ago. Lucas doesn't want anyone to know, so he's been keeping it from all of us." I assure him, trying to make him feel better about any of this, knowing that it really isn't going to do anything.
"How long does he have?" Nathan asks Haley, realizing that she must know if that is why Peyton was sitting there right now.
"Nate, I don't want her to say it, I can't know that."
"But you just came in here for that, I don't get it."
"I just… I needed to know if I should tell him about the baby or not… I need to make decisions and I needed to know."
"Peyton, you can't be thinking about not having this baby…" Haley finally says, not believing what I could be thinking.
"Honestly? I sat in the doctor's office yesterday and my spirit was crushed when she told me I was pregnant. I wanted that so bad, but I didn't want it for me. I wanted it for us. So, if there isn't going to be an us, then I don't know what to do." I say, finally revealing what has been going through my head for the past twenty four hours and feeling something rise up in my throat for letting the words actually pass through my lips.
"But it's Lucas." Nathan says, breaking through the haze in my brain, "That baby isn't just some random kid, it's you and it's Lucas. Lucas will live on through that kid, so I don't know how you could be thinking anything else."
"Nathan." Haley says, almost warning him.
"I can't do this by myself." I finally say after a few silent moments, staring down at my still flat stomach.
It is then that it registers to both of them. He looks at Haley for a moment and I don't know exactly what transpired in their glance, but in a moment he is at my side telling me that he will be there every step of the way.
"Haley has been there for Luke, and I want to be there for you. Lucas and I had an ass of a father, but we had a hell of an amazing uncle. Frankly, I want to contend for best Uncle ever." He tells me with that same smirk his brother has.
"I don't want Lucas to know though. I can't let this be his regret."
"Don't let it be yours either." Haley says, and I'm instantly in tears.
"I just can't see the look on his face. Him knowing that I'm having his baby and knowing that he won't be here for it. I can't erase the thoughts that I had before, of what it would be like to tell him after a few years that I was pregnant. To pick out baby names and decorate nurseries. All of that is gone, and I can't have him regret that. I don't want to do that to him."
Haley had come over to me, holding me in a tight embrace while stroking my hair and letting me cry. "It's going to be okay. We're here for you, we're here for Lucas, and we're here for that baby."
"Thank you." I say, finally collecting myself enough to look up at the concerned faces before me.
"What about Brooke?"
"I don't want her to know, and I don't think that Lucas wants her to know either."
"If that's what you want."
I nod, and that begins the next few months of my life, hiding a pregnancy from my husband and best friend.
Lucas started to get to this point where he felt fine for most of the day and then he crashed when he got home. It was good for me, because I was just as tired.
Nathan had been true to his word, taking me to doctor's appointments and convincing me to let me doctor in on the situation. It was Nathan who insisted that I hear the baby's heartbeat at my last appointment, telling me that it was a sound you could never forget. He cried and I cried, not knowing if we were crying about the hope or the sadness of the future that lay ahead. He was living up to best Uncle ever, and I was starting to feel like I could possibly survive this. I could be a mother, and I could raise this piece of Lucas and I with the help of everyone around me.
I was four months into my pregnancy and barely showing. Lucas would know, but he's never up late enough to see me changing and he's never up early enough for the same. On one of his good days, he dropped a bomb I wasn't expecting, waking up before me and watching me sleep.
When I opened my eyes, I was confused for a moment, "Did I sleep in?"
"No, I'm just feeling good today, so I got up early."
"You're feeling better?"
"Yeah, I just wanted to be up, and you were still sleeping."
"Oh, I'm sorry… well let me get you some breakfast." I say starting to stand up and being set back down with a hand to my wrist.
"You were really never going to tell me?" he says out of the blue.
"What are you talking about?" I say, totally confused, but really knowing exactly what he was talking about.
"You weren't going to tell me about the baby?"
I'm instantly dissolved into tears at the realization that he knows, that he's known. "Lucas…"
He holds me close as I cry, explaining to him the reasons why I couldn't tell him. He nods, and seems to be understanding every little part that I shared with him.
"I get it, but I need you to know that finding out that you were pregnant was the happiest moment of my life next to marrying you, Peyton."
"How did you even know? How long have you known?"
"I've known for a month or so now… you left the sonogram pictures out one morning and didn't realize it. I got up to grab some water before heading back to bed and saw them on the kitchen counter."
"I'm sorry." I say, not knowing what exactly I'm sorry for.
"You don't have to be, you are giving me something that I didn't think I was ever going to be able to have." He says with a smile, and all of my fears are realized.
In that moment, baby names and nurseries, birthing classes, talking to my stomach… it all came crashing at me, and I was again dissolved into tears. "Don't…"
"Don't what?"
"Don't be happy about this… I can't… I didn't tell you, because I knew you would be happy. I knew that you would…"
"Try to save you again? Peyton, this baby is what I needed to save myself again."
I'm confused for a moment before he informs me that he started a new treatment the day he found out about the pregnancy. It was one of two last chances the doctor presented him with. He had refused because of how horrible everything else had made him feel, but couldn't go down without a fight.
"I feel a lot better, and results are looking up for now."
"Lucas…"
"I know that we cut each other off, Peyton… and don't deny that's what we did. I need you though, I don't need Haley. I want you with me on this, because you're what I have to live for, you and that baby."
All I can do is nod, completely understanding what he was saying.
It was an hour later when we finally decided that food was necessary, after laying with each other and getting back the lost intimacy of the past few months.
"Wait, come back…" Lucas says, pulling me back down.
I don't understand what he's doing until I feel his lips graze my belly button, and I never know what exactly he whispers to our unborn child that morning. Maybe we will get those moments.
He's getting progressively better as I get into my third trimester, six months along and growing. The doctors are optimistic still, which is enough to keep both of us going.
We're test driving strollers around the store when he tells me that he wants to sit down.
"Luke, we've got to figure this out, because we have to have the stroller and the car seat picked out so we can actually take the baby home from the hospital." I say, knowing that this wasn't what he had planned for his day. Nathan had called earlier that morning wanting to shoot hoops with Jamie down at the Rivercourt, but he had promised me baby shopping, and I wasn't going to let him out of if.
"I know that, Peyton, I just need to sit down for a minute."
"All right, lightweight, go pick out a glider while you're over there." I say, poking fun at him, and honestly thinking that the baby stuff was overwhelming him like a typical guy.
It isn't until he starts coughing that I feel I may have been wrong.
"Lucas?" I say loud enough for him to hear me as well as a few other customers as I'm walking over to him.
He doesn't respond verbally, only allowing the coughing to worsen as he looks up at me with tears in his eyes.
"Luke!" I scream, getting the attention of one of the sales people, who comes running over. "Call 911! Call 911 now!"
After my screams, all I can do is maneuver my six month pregnant stomach around so I'm sitting on the ottoman across from him, "Lucas, you can't do this to me. You have to hold on, you have to get out of here and you have to get better. Do you understand me?"
It wasn't until hours later when the doctor came out to get me, as I was surrounded by everyone we call family in the waiting room. "Mrs. Scott?"
"Is he okay?"
"His immune system has obviously been compromised by the drugs they have him on. He says he's been fighting off a cold, so going out today was probably what put him over the edge. We're going to have to talk to his oncologist, because we need to take him off the drug therapy to get his immune system back to fight whatever he has."
"But won't that make the cancer come back."
"That's a risk we have to take."
"No it's not." I say, starting to get more frantic as my hands flail around.
"Mrs. Scott, you don't understand. If we don't get him off these drugs and get his immune system to fight this, he will die… sooner rather than later."
I laugh at this, knowing that this isn't necessarily the appropriate time for laughter, but not knowing what else to do. We had finally gotten into our routine again. We were having a baby. We were happy, and the cloud that seemed to follow us everywhere had streaks of blue shining through. Now all I see is black.
There you go guys, another chapter, short as it may be, I hope that you enjoyed it!
