"Are you ready Hales?" Lucas asked as we started to walk towards the airport exit.

"As ready as I ever will be," was my answer. I still held Riley, Luke had picked up Alex and James was in between us, holding both our hands. James had always looked up to Lucas, especially after his dad went away. At that time, all he had was his Uncle Luke. The twins had talked to Luke on the phone once a month, and a couple times last year, Brooke and Luke came up to see us. They had left Alisson behind, at Karen's. She was too young to go on a long trip. In my opinion the twins were still too young, but they were surprisingly being good.

We got to the car and got the twins buckled up in their car seats, and James sat in between them and buckled up. I got in the car and buckled up. The airport was about thirty minutes from Tree Hill. The ride was tense and I was so glad the kids were being good. I had a feeling it was because they were all still sleepy. I just gazed out the window, thinking. I watched as the trees zoomed by. I was trying to clear my mind, but I was so nervous.

"Hales?" Luke was looking at me out of the corner of his eyes. I pretended I didn't hear him. "Hales, it's all right. You'll be okay. The kids will be fine. If you want me to, I'll threaten him again."

I laughed at that, looked over at him and smiled. "I know it'll be fine, I have to make it fine. For the kids." I glanced in the backseat and all three of them were asleep. "You know James didn't want to come because of Nate? He is still harboring those feelings against his dad."

Luke laughed at that. I knew why too. That's another way you could tell James was Nathan's. The stubbornness to not give up on a grudge or a sore heart or ego. The weariness of giving someone a second chance. It was scary though that a five year old was doing that. All though, I honestly don't think I could blame him. I grinned at Luke and turned on the radio. He was right, I need to make the best of this situation.

I had no idea what song it was that was on, but I tried to sing to it anyway. Luke joined in and pretty soon we started singing louder. Big mistake. We woke the kids. "Mom! Riley just hit me!"

I looked in the back "Riley Christina Scott! You know better than to hit you're brother."

"I no hit bubba. Brothder did."

"Riley, don't make Uncle Luke pull this car over. Now tell your brother sorry."

"I no did it momma! I not say sowwy!"

"That's it Riley. When we get to Uncle Luke's you are going to stand in the corner for three minutes and think about why you did that."

Riley scrunched up her face and gave me an evil look. Another trait that she gained from her dad. Now she was going to sulk.

"Riley, did you hear me?"
"I no like you right now momma!"

"I'm sorry to here that Ri, but I love you."

Luke looked at me and I shrugged. I go through this with the twins a lot. I don't know how many times they have told me that they didn't like me, that they didn't love me. At first it bugged me and made me cry, but I realized that they didn't mean it. Their pride was just hurt. Just like their daddy did. I smiled up at Luke. "They get more and more like him every day."

"The boys look just like him."

I just smiled. If nothing else went right these two weeks, I would still have part of Nate with me. Three parts of him actually. James Allan, Riley Christina and Alex Nathaniel. We finally got to the house. Luke grabbed the bags out and I took the kids inside. Brooke was standing there.

She ran and gave me a hug. We walked inside and she told the kids that Jenny and Alisson were in the backyard and they could go, Riley tried to take off but I stopped her. "Riley, corner. Now." She stomped her foot. "Lil missy, do you want to make it longer? Just because we are not at our house, doesn't mean you can throw a tantrum Do what I say or I will ground you." She stomped over to the corner and stuck her nose in it.

Brooke raised an eyebrow at me. "What's that all about? They just got here. What could she have done?"

"She hit James and lied to me about it. Sorry Brooke, forgot to warn you, they have Nate's temper."

Brooke laughed. "So how have you been friend?"

"Since when? Since I last saw you, great. Since I found out about this reunion a nervous wreck. How bout you?"

She smiled at me. Her eyes twinkled. "It'll be fine sweetie. You're with me now. I've been pretty good, Alisson has been so excited about finally getting to meet her cousins. I couldn't hardly get her to sleep last night. Luke and I ended up driving her all over town for like an hour until she fell asleep and she was back up at the crack of dawn."

I grabbed my suitcases from Luke and brought them upstairs to where the guests would be staying. Brooke showed me where my room was, and then showed me where all the kids would be sleeping. I raised my eyebrow at the thought of all the kids sleeping in the same room, it would take forever to get them to sleep, but isn't that what a vacation is for? At least that's what I thought when I was a kid.

I went back downstairs and hollered at Riley. She came over to me and looked down. "Do you know why you got into trouble Riley?" I lightly lifted her chin to look at me. She nodded.

"Why?"

"Cuz, I hit bubba and blamed it on brothder."

"Exactly, now what should you do?"

"Go tell them sowwy."

"That's a good girl." I walked with her outside and she went up to the boys and apologized. They forgave her and hugged. She came back to me gave me a hug told me she loved me and then went to play ball with the boys.

Brooke and I sat outside on the patio watching the kids. "How'd you do that tutor girl?"

I looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Don't play stupid with me. How on earth did you get your kids to behave like that? Apologize and hug?"

"Well, it's taking three whole years, and they don't always do it that fast. One day I had to keep all three of them in the corner for like an hour and they still didn't budge. So I put them all to bed early. Except I put Riley in my bed, because that's a big punishment to not let her and Alex sleep in the same room. About one in the morning they all came in at the same time and apologized. Then somehow all ended up in bed with me."

Brooke laughed at that. We talked for a long time then I thought of something. "Hey, who all is going to stay and when is everyone going to get here?"

She smiled. "Well, Peyt and Jake should be here soon. We're meeting Mouth and Gigi, Rach, Skillz and Bev and Nathan at the cafe later. We'll of course get there before they do. Karen's got a playground set up behind the cafe so the kids can all play instead of sitting in the diner, getting bored like you and Luke used to do."

I grinned. Luke and I never got bored. We'd always sneak up to the roof and play our golf. I grinned as I thought of that time, so long ago. Everything was so much easier back then. It was just me, Luke, his mom and his Uncle Keith. We had nothing to worry about. We had no heartbreak. We had built our own walls. Sure there was the River court guys. Skillz, Mouth, Jimmy... Jimmy that was a whole new story. My smile faltered. I, like Lucas, didn't think that Jimmy had killed Keith. Jimmy. He was a nice guy. He was just lonely. After Lucas joined the team, I started dating Nathan, Mouth started announcing the games, we kind of ignored him. He so easily hid in the background. We didn't know how bad we had hurt him, but we should have. We should have paid attention to the signs. It was too late now though, Jimmy Edwards was dead. He brought a gun to school, shot Peyt in the leg, held us all in a classroom and gunpoint, and then shot himself. Everyone believes he also killed Keith. I don't. Lucas doesn't.

"Hey Hales what you thinking about?" Lucas was standing next to me now. I didn't see Brooke. "She went inside, had to go to the bathroom. She tried to tell you, but she said you were zoned out."

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know. Brooke was talking bout how your mom made a playground behind the cafe so the kids didn't have to sit and be bored like we did. I started thinking about our golf course on the roof. Then thought about how much easier it was before we became popular back in high school. When it was just me, you and the river court guys. Then I started to think about..."

"Jimmy?"

"Ya, how did you know?" I looked up at him.

"Hales, just like Mouth, and you and Skillz, I think about that boy all the time. I think we're the only ones who believe he is innocent, at least of Keith's death. I miss him all the time. Sometimes I think that maybe it was our fault. But Hales, it wasn't. We tried to talk to him, maybe not as hard as we should have, but when we realized how bad things were, we tried. He didn't respond."

"I know.. It's just.. It's.. just.."

"Hales, I don't regret how things happened. I mean I regret losing Jim and Keith, but I met the love of my life, finally got along w/ my brother. I have a 5 year old brother now..."

I cut in. "I don't regret anything either. I mean I love Nate, I loved Nathan. I have three beautiful, yet awnry kids from him. I have the best friends in the world..."

"Okay."

Just then we heard voices. I looked up and seen Peyton and Jake. I jumped up and gave Peyton a big hug. I hadn't seen her in three years. "OH MY GOD PEYT! HOW ARE YOU?!?!?!?" Brooke just happened to come out of the bathroom at that time and joined into the hug fest thing. The guys just rolled their eyes.

We broke apart and I seen my kids look at us funny, then I saw Jenny and their youngest. I grinned. "Kids come here." The twins and James walked over to me and looked up at the strangers.

"Kids this is Auntie Peyton and Uncle Jake. These are their kids, Jenny and Allie. Jennie is six and Allie is three. These," I pointed at my three, "are my angels. James whose five, Riley and Alex who are three." The kids all looked at each other and then walked back to where they were. They all seemed to get along fine. Luke and Jake took their bags upstairs. Us girls sat outside watched the kids and chitchatted. It almost felt like back in high school. Almost.

"Hey you guys, it's five, maybe we should go ahead and head to the cafe.

We all loaded up in the cars. The kids all climbed into Jake and Peyton's van. Lucas road with Jake so us girls could ride together. We kidnapped Luke's truck, so we didn't have to fight over who got shotgun. We thought about walking, but decided against it, not with six kids, four of them being three. It just wasn't the best idea. At least not tonight. We finally got to the cafe. Karen gave all the kids hugs. They ran out back to play. The bigger kids promised to look after the little ones. Us adults looked out back and laughed. The boys were playing ball, since there was only three they were playing against each other. The girls were standing at the side of the court trying to be cheerleaders. I laughed at that. They are seriously taking after their parents.

"Yo' Luke what's up?" I turned around and seen Skillz and Bev walk in. They had a little boy with them. He looked to be about James and Keith's age. Bev and Skillz moved right after our senior year. I ran over there and gave them a hug. Their boy introduced himself as Skillz Jr. and Bev grinned at us. Pretty soon, Mouth showed up with Gigi. Then Rachel came in and to everyone's surprise she was with Tim. We all busted up laughing.

I looked at Peyton, "You know Peyt, Tim's actually grown kind of cute." She looked at me and then realized I was joking and started laughing.

A few minutes later Nathan walked in. He came around and gave everyone a hug, and he paused at me. I stared at him for a few moments. I about got lost in his blue eyes again, like I always did. We stared at each other for a little bit longer and then he gave me a slight hug. It seemed forced, because as quick as it started it was over. I wanted to cry but Brooke interrupted us. "Time to eat guys!"

We started to eat and everyone was talking about their lives and asking each other. I avoided speaking to Nathan and he avoided speaking to me. Well, not exactly we did make small talk, but to me it didn't amount to much. It was hard to look at him, because I knew I was still in love with him. He meant the world to me. I just didn't think he felt that way, so I tried to act like I didn't feel like that. I looked over at Brooke. "O.K. B. Davis. Spill it. We're all done eating here, what do you have planned for us?" She grinned at me.

"Always one to cut to the business huh tutor wife/girl, but the thing is, each day something different is planned. I won't tell you guys what's going to happen until the night before. The activities will take place at night. So for tomorrow night..." She got up and got out a couple of boxes. She handed them to us. Told us not to open it. not yet until she read us a letter she had received.

"Dear Tree Hill seniors of '07. I would like to invite you all to a basketball game against our Varsity team. It is kind of like the annual father/son game, but this years team wanted to have you all instead. Whitey has agreed to come back as a coach, just for this game. If you all accept. Sincerely, Coach Logden and the Tree Hill Varsity Ravens."

We all looked at Brooke dumbfounded. She grinned. "I of course accepted." We opened our boxes and us girls cracked up. We had our cheerleading uniforms. The guys had their basketball uniforms. "So whenever we are going to practice. Girl's we'll practice both tonight and tomorrow, guys I'm pretty sure Whitey will meet you at the River court tonight." Everyone started talking at once. Brooke was amazing. "One more thing... Here's you're other boxes." She handed them to the girls. "You're kids are going to put on a lil show also before the game. The girls will be the cheerleaders and the boys will play. Guy's it's up to you to help the boys out, and girl's we're going to make the lil ones the best cheerleaders there hearts can be."

I opened the box and pulled out a Jersey that said J. Scott on it. Nate looked over at me. I looked at Brooke. I pulled out another jersey that said A. Scott and then a lil cheerleading outfit. Nathan didn't see the last two. James chose that time to come running in. "Momma! Momma! I beat Keith and Skillz Jr. and Alex. I the champion. that's why they made me captain of my team at school. Isn't it mommy? I'm just that darn good!" I grinned as he climbed in my lap.

I looked across the table at Nathan and he just stared. He didn't say anything but looked down. I glanced at Luke and he fiddled with something. Then Brooke and them decided to go get the kids ready. She had told everyone that the kids didn't get to see their uniforms until tomorrow, it was going to be surprise to them. So Nathan still didn't know about the twins. The look on Lucas' face said he wasn't going to say anything until I was ready.

I walked James over to the couch. I glanced up at Nathan, he was about to leave and I glared at him. He didn't go. "Bubba, I wanna tell you something. Mommy's got good news for you. You remember how mommy was a cheerleader and daddy and Uncle Luke were basketball players for the Tree Hill Ravens?"

He nodded.

"Well tomorrow night we're having a reunion game against the new Tree Hill Ravens, and before the game you boys are going to play and the girls are going to cheer for you."

His eyes lit up. "I can get better than I am and be a good captain mommy. My team will be so proud. And I GET TO PLAY ON THE RAVEN COURT! YAY!"

"Baby, there is one thing, the daddy's are going to teach you all how to play."

At this he turned and looked at Nate. Nathan just stood there, still staring. Didn't make a move to come towards him.

James looked like he was about to cry. "I don't want him, I want Uncle Luke to teach me to play!" He tore across the room and upstairs. "JAMES!" I ran after him.

When I finally caught him, he looked at me. "James Allan you promised mommy. You promised me you'd try."

"Mommy, he didn't even talk to me. He hates me! He don't love me. He never did!"

"James that isn't the truth. You know your daddy loves you. He just didn't expect to see you here. Listen baby, go dry your eyes and go back out with your Uncle Luke and the guys. I'll talk to you're father."

He sniffled. "Okay mommy. I will."

After he went outside, I went back downstairs. I was looking at the floor because I was trying not to cry. I ended up almost tripping over a chair but strong arms caught me. I looked up and it was Nathan. For a split second I almost fell into his embrace, back into his arms but I looked at the anger on his face. Then I remembered I was angry at him too. I stepped back from him and crossed my arms. I glared at him.

"What was that all about Haley?!"

"What do you mean?"

"What have you been telling my son! What have you said to make him hate me so much!"

"Don't you even put this on me Nathan Scott! I tell your son every night that you love him. I have told him every night for the past three freaking years. He doesn't believe those words anymore!" I screamed at him.

"Well If you wouldn't.."

I cut in. "NO NATHAN! I'm not the one who ran out on him three years ago. I'm not the one who broke the little boy's heart. I'm not the one who decided I didn't want my kid. I have raised him by myself. He knows his mommy loves him, but he has no clue about his daddy."

"But I do..."
"You didn't prove it just then Nate. You didn't even attempt to say hi..."

"HALEY! I WAS SHOCKED..."

"I don't want your excuses Nathan. I could care less. It's not me you are hurting, it's that little boy. If you want a relationship with him, you have two weeks to try and get it. I swear Nathan, it isn't going to be easy. He is your son."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"His pride was hurt once, before. He aint going to let it happen again. He aint going to trust. Just like his father, he seems to think second chances are hard. If you want that relationship, then you best prove your ass that you want it." With that I stormed off towards where the girls were. I was so mad! Everyone could tell. This was going to be a long two weeks.