*Authors note* this chapter is a little more parental perspective because I pre-wrote this chapter when it was an idea for another story but I didn't use it and now I have decided to use it in this story right now…..! this is the introduction for the welcoming back of another character who I absolutely adore my WHOLE heart who I miss and who I wish we heard about more often in Tree Hill, Plus again we have some more Jude and Lydia stuff going on, so read, review and enjoy please*
When we were Young – chapter four
The kettle screamed and she took it off the hot plate, humming as she poured the boiling water into her cup, picking it up and walking to the living room where all the noise was coming from. As she walked past the stairs she yelled for her son to get up.
Peyton smiled walking into the living room as her eldest daughter Sawyer showed her youngest daughter Ellie her cheerleading moves, she then turned her smiley gaze to her husband who was sitting on the couch with a plate of toast on his knee and his concentration on his newspaper, and she really appreciated the smaller things.
As Peyton sat down on the couch wrapping her pyjama wearing legs under herself settling in as Leo walked in with his serious Peyton inherited black bed hair wearing his boxer shorts and hoodie sitting down between his mum and dad, stealing a piece of toast off Lucas' plate "OY" Lucas said looking up from his paper in outrage at his son who stood ahead of him with a piece of toast, his piece of toast, in his mouth
"What? I'm hungry" the boy said with toast in his mouth
"Then make your own"
"Why? You're not eating yours" he asked with a sheepish grin knowing how to rile his dad up
"I was just waiting"
"Till it was cold?" Leo asked as Peyton got off the couch responding to the knock at the door.
"You took my toast man"
"Here have it back" he said passing the half-eaten toast back to his dad
"I don't want your rejected toast"
"Technically it's YOUR rejected toast" said Leo as his mum laughed opening the front door.
"This is total Déjà vu"
"Hi"
"Please tell me your dad knows you're here"
"Well I'm in my twenties now so it's not as important but yeah" she said as Peyton hugged her "dads here too, he is just getting something from the car"
"Hello Peyton Scott" he said coming up the stairs. As she was about to respond a blue thing hit the side of her head later identified as her daughter's pom-pom.
"SAWYER SCOTT"
"It was Ellie" Sawyer blamed
"It was not" Ellie retaliated
"RUN SAWYER" Leo yelled at his oldest sister. Sawyer went to run up the stairs but stopped and looked at Jake
"It's the spunk in the pictures mum"
"Yes Sawyer I know" said Peyton a little embarrassed
Jake just laughed "Is that your baby girl? She is so grown up"
"Right back at you"
"Hey dad it's the guy that mum threatens to run away with" Sawyer yelled to her father
"Is Jake here?" Lucas asked getting up as Jake laughed and Peyton's cheeks went bright red
"Well come in"
X-x-x-x-x-x
"Sorry about my kids they can be a little intense"
"Don't be ridiculous, they are amazing, they are completely and totally you and Lucas"
"I do love my crazy kids, Ellie is this little silent bombshell with a killer smile but when she talks she is so funny. Then there is Sawyer who is crazy and spontaneous and bubbly and Leo is like this funny kid but when they get together they are partners in crime, Lucas and I don't have a hope in hell especially when all three kids are together and on the ball" Peyton said "Sorry I've turned into one of those mothers who doesn't shut up about her kids"
"Threaten to run away with me? Huh?"
"Shut up" Peyton laughed and then turned to him "Brace yourself Jakey" she said with her hands on his shoulders and then turned him around and together they walked in the door. As it shut there was a scream and at that point something nearly bowled Jake over and that something was Haley.
"I think you winded me" he said with a laugh as Haley held on rather tightly, she hadn't seen him since high school reunion and he could tell that she was going to ask as many questions as she possibly could in a very short amount of time
"Jake oh my god, It's great to see you"
"Right back at you Haley"
"Where is Jenny? How is Jenny?"
"Jenny is great and she is hanging out with Sawyer"
"What are you doing here?"
"Wanted a decent cup of coffee, only place I knew was Karen's café. Speaking of Karen, is she still owner?"
"Brooke and I re-opened it but when she moved back to the hill she became a partner"
"Is she around? I'd love to see her"
"She is on her way back from visiting Lily and my Jamie"
"Where are they living?"
"Moved to Charleston, were to cool to live near their mama's. She should be back for the Ravens game, Ooh how long are you in town for?"
"A couple of days my ma was feeling neglected"
Haley laughed "Any plans for tonight?" said Haley as Jake shook his head "Come to the Ravens game, everyone will be there"
X-x-x-x-x-x
"Hey Bobby" she yelled as she walked up the river court looking at her cousin who stood on the edge watching Lila, Maggie and Milo and Sawyer knew she was babysitting. Lydia turned around and smiled as the two girls walked towards her.
"Hey Sawy" she squinted as the sun glared brightly
"Babysitting?" she asked as they all turned and stood on the edge of basketball court
"Yup" Lydia said as simply as she could
"Hiding from Jude who would have trained here this morning and would now be, hmm let me see…" she said looking down at her watch "Eating pancakes?"
"No of course not and btw Sawyer Brooke Scott he wouldn't eat pancakes on a game day and right now he would be, hmm let me see…." Lydia said pretending to look at her watch that didn't exist "taking a shower"
"She doesn't have a crush on him at all she just knows his shower schedule" she said with a laugh as she looked to the girl on the other side of them who giggled
"I DO NOT!" she said turning to her laughing cousin before realising that she didn't know who the girl next to Sawyer was "Hi" she said with a small wave and a look of embarrassment
"This is Jenny Jagielski" Sawyer said pointing to the blonde girl to her right "her dad is…"
"Jake right?" Lydia said as Sawyer and Jenny looked at her "You've met my mum man, we have whole days dedicated to looking in photo albums, we have to dedicate time for her to tell a story of every single photo" she said with a laugh "Hi I'm Lydia Scott" she said holding out her hand "and unfortunately I have to take these little ratbags back home" Maggie was now attached to her side while Lila and Milo continued to run around
"Plus she also has to stand on the ledge outside Jude Baker's shower, hope the window isn't to fogged up and that you get a good view" Sawyer said with a laugh as Lydia jokingly punched her arm
"Yeah, yeah, yeah see you at the game tonight oh cheery one" she said waving and walking away with the three kids surrounding her.
"What's on tonight?" Jenny turned to Sawyer and asked
"Ravens are playing their first game of the season" Sawyer said with a smile on her face.
X-x-x-x-x-x
The group excluding Nathan, Lucas, Skills and the boys actually playing gathered around at the front of the Brian Durham gym. Izzy and Sawyer in long coats covering their skin left bare from the cheerleader outfits, while everyone else rugged up. Izzy sat between Brooke's legs as Brooke tied a ribbon in her hair and then hugged her to give the petite girl extra warmth.
Sawyer stood with the other cheerleaders and called Izzy over with a panicked look on her face as her mum and Jake showed up. Sawyer ran over to the group "Marissa is sick, I need another cheerleader" the look on her face was one of true stress
"I'd love too"
"Mum you're not funny, I'm serious" she said turning from her mother to Lydia "Can you do it?"
"Dude" Lydia said with a whine in her tone and this look of despair on her face
"Come on Bobby, It's the first Ravens game of the season I am cheer captain and Liza Schmidt will rub it in my face if I can't get a full team" Lydia continued to resist and so Sawyer got down on her knees in front of her cousin "PLEEEEEEEASE"
"Blondie" she said pulling her cousin up off the floor and holding her at arm's length "You don't want me on your cheer squad, I have the coordination of…my mum"
"HEY" Haley said sounding insulted as Peyton put an arm around her as everyone in the group tried to hide their smiles
"Oh come on Lydia You can't be that bad" said Sawyer
"HEY" Haley responded as all the adults let out their laughs, Jake included, just being here tonight in front of this familiar setting was making him think of what could have been but most of all he missed this place so much, throughout all of the years he had been gone that feeling was consistent and now he was standing with all these people who he had known back then and they were making him miss it even more.
"I NEEEEED YOU!" she continued to beg
"I say do it" Davis said as Lydia gave him the death stare "You'll look hot in a mini skirt"
"DUDE"
"I will be your slave for a whole day" Lydia just wasn't going to budge "And I will let you have the pretty red nail polish"
"Deal" she said without a moment of hesitation, she had been eyeing off the colour forever now, so they quickly ran off to the girls changing room leaving everyone to get re-acquainted with each other before all heading in to the gym to get good seats together.
X-x-x-x-x-x
He threw his bag on the floor and shut the door "How long till the game?"
"About ten minutes" Lily yelled from the kitchen. Jamie walked into the kitchen of their three bedroom apartment and opened the fridge "Thank god your mum stocked the fridge"
"Pity she didn't stock it with beer"
"WHAT?"
"Stop stressing Scott, Chuck went to get us some for the game" they had all decided, well Lily and Jamie had decided, Chuck really wanting to go out 'babe hunting' but Jamie had declined and he had said it was pretty pathetic going by yourself, so they had decided to stay in and watch to the Ravens game on the internet.
"Better hurry up" Jamie said biting into an apple
"What up? We ready for some Chucky love"
"Beers?" Jamie said ignoring his best friends comment
"Plenty"
X-x-x-x-x-x
"I look ridiculous" she said trying to manoeuvre the skimpy outfit to cover her bare body, she was thankful that she had decided to shave her legs earlier that night but this outfit felt more revealing than her bikini and it certainly didn't help that she was standing in front of a massive crowd.
"You look so hot Lydi-Loo" her cousin said as she handed Lydia the pompoms and walked over to the rest of the cheerleading group
"Yeah sure" Lydia brushed it off quickly and continued to blush anytime she thought anyone was looking her way
"You know who else will think your hot tonight?"
"Nope" she couldn't deny that her legs were shaking a little bit, she grabbed onto Sawyer to steady herself, and it wasn't that she wasn't confident in herself or her own abilities but this was way out of her comfort zone and anyone who knew her would know that.
"Rudy Judy" she said with this cheeky look on her face
"He will not"
"HERE THEY COME" one of the other cheerleaders announced to them all
"Here he comes" Sawyer elbowed her cousin
"Dude, Shut up"
Jude ran out looked abruptly towards the cheerleaders looked away and then looked back and stopped, another Raven running into the back of him.
"Lydiosa?" he questioned not sure if the scene in front of him was real or not, her brown curls falling onto her back, her mid drift on display and the skirt that sat perfectly on her toned legs, he gulped
"Yeah" she sort of blushed as he looked her up and down
"Looking good" he sort of spluttered, she certainly wasn't making this whole 'crush' thing easy on him, first she said it, then she danced on a table top, before telling him she wasn't interested and now this outfit, Lydia Bob Scott was playing him and he wasn't even sure if she was aware of it.
"Right" she said not really believing him
"Well I have a game to play" he said indicating to the court where his frustrated and nervous coach and team mates stood looking over to him
"Play good Jude" he smiled turning away before turning back again
"Hey Lydia you really do look good, don't doubt it. I like cheerleaders" he winked and Lydia was swoon city as the game started.
X-x-x-x-x-x
"What was that?" Brooke asked Haley as they looked on at their children and the interaction they had just shared, they watched as Jude walked away but continued to look back at Lydia who was clearly trying to do her best to not fall over or look at him
"Was that a moment?"
"I think it may have been" Brooke said with a smile on her face.
X-x-x-x-x-x
It was halfway through the game and the Ravens were a couple of points down. Haley and Brooke were standing up screaming stuff down like "YOU SUCK" or "COME ON" and Peyton, Jake and Jenny were hysterically laughing.
"What?" he said breaking into hysteric laughter "Are they doing?"
"You see Haley and Brooke get really into abusing the Ref, It really makes Raven games more interesting. One day Haley threw something and Brooke got kicked out of the gym for three games" Peyton loved her quirky family and just being in their presence made the company phenomenal, the whole lot of them brought her this profound joy and she was sure that it was the same for all of them.
"I can't believe that we are watching this generations Raven's play, we were these kids not that long ago"
"If my kids get up to half the stuff I did I will kill them" Peyton and Jake were taken back to the game when the whole crowd exclaimed. Jude was on the ground; Brooke and Julian were standing panicked. Peyton turned to Haley who also had a panicked look on her face "What happened?"
"Some kid clearly on steroids punched Jude"
"Whoa"
"LUCAS IS HE OKAY?" Brooke yelled and pleaded down the auditorium, these boys were her life and when these sorts of things happened to them her heart would literally stop until she knew they were okay. As Jude got helped up by Leo, the player that punched Jude was clearly gloating, Quinn leant forward to Brooke "Its okay we will send him bad vibes" and with that Sam tackled the kid and they were rolling on the ground hitting each other.
"Good job with the bad vibes Quinney. GO SA…" before she could finish Julian had yanked her down and covered her mouth and she looked at him with a sorry look in her eyes.
"I'm going to kill that kid" Haley fumed
The fight was broken up just after Sam got punched in the eyes and Couch Lucas called a time out yelling "LOCKER ROOM NOW" and the boys headed.
"LUCAS" Haley yelled down as he turned around "Tell tackle boy that he is in major trouble. EXTREME trouble" she sat down fuming "NATHAN" she said aggravated
"What did I do?"
"He's your son and he has temper issues in high school, remind you of anyone?"
"He is your son too and I remember someone who slapped a lot of people in high school, does that ring a bell?"
She sort of smirked "Just get down there" she said sitting down "Poke his bruised eye for me Nate"
X-x-x-x-x-x
"Mums going to kill him" said Jamie and Lydia instinctively both in different locations, one standing in the gym watching the whole thing unfold the other watching the computer screen a couple of hours away. The thing was the James-Scott kids were pretty good, a little crazy, very funny, pretty well balanced and pretty well behaved but sometimes there was this small exception, this small exception named Sam Quentin Scott, he was a good kid, very smart and incredibly cheeky but he fought hard for what he thought was right and that often got him into a lot of trouble, his mum had warned him that if he had got into trouble this year not only would basketball be out of the question but he would be dead, they knew he could convince her to let him continue to play basketball but they weren't so sure that he could convince her not to kill him.
X-x-x-x-x-x
"What the hell was that Sammy?" his frustrated coach and uncle said with a hand on his head and this angry look on his face
"He hit Jude" Sam said pointing out the obvious reason first
"I know he hit Jude"
"He was gloating"
"Sam" he said trying to get his nephew to listen to him but knowing full well that while he was definitely going to punish the boy that it would be one hundred times worse when his best friend got to him
"What sort of douche says 'he got up in ma grillz'?"
"Sammy, Shut up" Sam walked over to Jude and put his hand on his shoulder
"You okay Baker?"
"Yeah my man Sam. Thanks for having my back" Jude said with this slight smile as the first aide guy walked away from him, he was kind of surprised that his mum wasn't in there panicking and being manic about the whole thing.
"Welcome"
"Your mum is going to kill you" he pointed out, Jude had grown up with these kids and he was like their big brother, who knew exactly what his Aunt Haley could do if she had to
"Yeah I know"
"BACK ON COURT BOYS" Lucas yelled. Sam knew that he would be sitting on the bench for the rest of the match but he still walked out with his teammates, stopping at his dad who had this look on his face and he knew that he was in trouble.
"Hey kid, Enjoy the end of the game cause it might be the last time you see sunlight in a long time" Nathan said with a slight smile on his face, he could sympathise with his son, he didn't condone his behaviour but Nathan had been in his position many a time and it would be hypocritical to judge him too harshly, he would leave that up to Haley.
X-x-x-x-x-x
The Ravens won and now everyone was filing out of the Brian Durham gym, massive groups of chatting excited people to be exact
"Hey Lydi wait up" Davis yelled out as Lydia turned around and looked at him with a smile, she was still wearing the cheerleading outfit but she had borrowed a coat off her mum who had walked off ahead of her
"Dude" she exclaimed with a smile
"Let me tell you this" he said catching up and beginning to walk with her, arms linked, for some reason they always did that, always linked arms when they were walking, like it was some comfort to them or maybe it was the idea that if they were connected then their conversations wouldn't be interrupted by the outside world.
"Wait. Don't mention the cheerleading" she said rather urgently before he could even speak a word
"Okay. Fine. Whatever" he said biting his tongue because clearly all he had wanted to mention and joke about was her cheerleading
"Hey Nerd burger" his brother said walking across to them, Lydia felt herself blushing again, she felt lucky that it was dark outside and that he probably wouldn't be able to tell anyway.
"Yes evil twin?"
"Can you give me and the bobinator a moment?" he asked as he took a gulp, Davis knew what this was, he knew his brother was about to pour out his heart to Lydia Scott and he smiled
"Sure thing" he went to walk away "By the way Lydi nice legs"
"Dude, shut up" she laughed at Davis and nervously "how is the eyes?"
"Yeah it's okay"
"Mums going to Kill Sammy, Actually" she said looking down at her watch "She probably already has"
"Yeah" Lydia kept walking "Lydia"
"You played like a girl Judy"
"LYDIA"
"Sorry. I was kidding about you playing like a girl, actually you played pretty well" she said as he continued to look at her with his fascinating eyes that told her so much with one look, this look was saying 'can you please just shut up and let me talk' "What?"
"You know the other week when you told me you liked me?"
"Yes I remember, it was humiliating" she said again thankful for the darkness and the fact that she was pretty sure that she had cried out all her tears already.
"Look…"
"Jude you don't have to explain, in actual fact it would make me feel better if you didn't" she said wanting to move away, get away, anything really just to get away from this conversation
"Lydia"
"Jude" she said in all seriousness
'I like you too"
"Jude seriously"
"Come on Lydia I mean it"
"If this is because I am wearing a cheerleader outfit" she said again trying to adjust the material of the skirt to be more covered in front of him, this outfit made her feel as though she stood in front of him completely bare and she couldn't do that again not in the span on a week.
"It's not"
"How do you know that?" And with that he kissed her she broke it off "Because I'm not wearing one of those often" she decided to clear up
"Dude, shut up!" he mocked before she kissed him hard back.
X-x-x-x-x-x
"Well that was an interesting game Couch Scott; I can't believe its Coach Scott now"
"I'm no Coach Durham"
"If these walls could talk man"
"Do you miss Tree Hill?"
"I do and I lied" Lucas looked at him curiously "I'm not back for my ma, I'm moving back, Jenny's older now and I want to come home" Lucas laughed shook his hand and drew him into a hug patting his back.
"Welcome back man"
To be continued!