AN: Here I am again with an update! Sorry it took me -once again- so long to do so, I just had so much trouble with this one. It honestly was the hardest chapter to write! I'm still not quite sure about it, but after working on it for like, six weeks, I thought I'd just give it a shot and let you tell me what you think of it ;)

I know this is a long-awaited flashback and I really hope I don't disappoint you guys! And just to be clear, of course I don't support what they did! I had the idea and I needed to write it, but I somehow think that the fact that I absolutely hate what they did brought me so much trouble to write this chapter. Still, I can't really hate on Peyton&Lucas so I wanted that to be clear in the chapter too, they aren't some insensitive monsters or something, lol.

Anyways, italics are flashbacks, normal lettering are flashbacks in a flashback, if that makes sense. I hope it becomes clear in the chapter :) Enjoy!

Chapter 7. Hello, Goodbye

"We got carried away. It didn't mean anything."

He had heard those words before. He knew she didn't mean it the first time she had spoken them. He had actually wished for those words not to be true the first time. His seventeen year old mind just couldn't handle the thought of having been that close to that girl without it meaning anything to her.

However, now he only wished for those words to actually be true. Because as complicated as it had been back then, it was a thousand times more complicated right now.

"It didn't?"

"It didn't." She answered his question and made her way out of the room and into the bathroom, not wanting him to see in her eyes what he probably already knew.

Of course it did. Everything that had ever happened between the two of them had meant something, this wasn't any different.

Yet, she needed it not to mean anything. For her, for him and maybe most of all for Jake. And Lindsey.

"Peyton?" His surprised voice sounded right behind her. He had just left his place to get a coffee and really hadn't expected to see her on the sidewalk of that gallery he walked by every morning.

"Lucas, hi!" She said, a little surprised as well and gave him a quick, maybe awkward, hug after turning around. She had wanted to see him while she was in New York, yet it felt kind of weird now he actually stood in front of her. "What are you doing here?"

"I live here, you know." He answered and they both had to let out a soft chuckle. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here for work. Art exhibition." She explained and showed him the pamphlet she was still holding in her hand.

"Sounds interesting." Lucas said, nodding a bit. "How are you?" He asked while giving her the pamphlet back.

"Great." She answered, showing him one of those smiles he had always loved about her. "Kind of overwhelmed by the city as well. How do you manage to live here?" She asked and made them both let out a quiet laugh.

"You get used to it." He said with a smile, shrugging one shoulder. "When do you need to get back?"

"My flight's tomorrow. Gives me enough time to explore that exhibition today."

"Well, you still got some time before you have to go? We can get a coffee or something." He proposed with a smile she couldn't say no to. She simply nodded and followed him into the New York streets.

"I should get going." She spoke softly when she came out of the bathroom.

"Why?"

"I have a flight to catch." She answered, avoiding his eyes.

He couldn't help but close his eyes briefly and letting out a sigh he knew she wouldn't appreciate all that much. "Peyton." He said at last, hoping it would stop her in her steps on her way to the door.

"We can't do this, Lucas."

"I know. We can't just leave like this either though. There's no point in taking the easy way out."

She let her eyes travel all over the room, just so she wouldn't have to look into his. Leave it like this? Easy way out? As if there was an easy way out. "What do you want me to say? What do you want me to do? I, we, can't change this, I know that, but we don't have to let it mean more than it does."

"Can you believe this is only the second time we see each other since you moved to Savannah?" He asked when they both got their second coffee.

"Crazy, right? Feels like yesterday sometimes. High school, I mean."

"Feels like another lifetime sometimes." He replied, locking eyes with her.

Being honest, she had to say it felt like that for her as well from time to time. It was only four years ago, yet, sometimes it felt like it had been a lot more than just those four years.

She loved her life, she really did. She had a great husband, a wonderful stepdaughter and a job she more than loved. Still, she couldn't help but feel like something was missing sometimes. She liked to blame that feeling on the fact she didn't saw her friends as much as she wished, but honestly, she knew all too well it might have been something else.

"Yeah, I know what you mean." She said at last before silence settled between them.

"We grew apart. I didn't think it would happen, you know. When you moved away." He stated after a while and surprised her maybe just a tad with his statement.

"We both have our lives, Lucas. Isn't it normal?"

"So do Nathan and Haley, or Brooke. You still see them often, right?"

"You sound jealous." She said jokingly, trying to relieve the tension that was quickly formed between the two of them.

"Maybe I am." He answered, chuckling softly. "Still, we used to be good friends, Peyton."

"I know." Peyton nodded slightly. "But I have to go now. I'm here for work after all." She said with a quiet sigh in her voice.

She really had hoped to spend just a bit more time with him. It was true, they had grown apart and though she had always known so, when she saw him again just a couple weeks ago at Brooke and Julian's wedding, it hit her quite hard to realize they knew nothing anymore about the other's life.

"What about dinner tonight? Lindsey's in LA, we'd both be on our own anyway." Lucas then asked, but didn't miss that doubting look on her face. "We can catch up, you know. We didn't have much time to do so the last time we saw each other."

"Sure." She said at last and gave him a smile before getting up from her place. "See you later then."

"It didn't mean anything, right? You sure?" He asked after her latest statement.

"What's that supposed to mean, Lucas? I'm married. It can't mean anything, you know that."

"The fact that it can't doesn't mean that it doesn't!"

"I'm married. You will be too in a couple weeks. We shouldn't make a big deal out of this, it was just…" She sighed desperately, closing her eyes tightly.

"What?"

"It was a mistake." She spoke quietly and started to make her way to the door again.

"Peyton!" He called out once again. God, why couldn't he just let her go? It was a mistake, she shouldn't have been there, why couldn't he just let her walk away now? She needed to walk away, right now.

She stopped at the door and turned towards him, again avoiding his eyes. They might have lost each other in the course of the last few years, she knew he still knew her. She knew he would be able to tell everything that was going on inside her mind just by one look into her eyes. And she really didn't need him to see just how much it hurt her to walk away in that moment.

"Are you going to tell him?"

"Are you going to tell her?" She fired back his question instead of answering it.

They both stayed quiet for just a while after that before Peyton opened the door and stepped out of the room.

"I should get going. I'm sorry." She said at last before closing the door behind her.

"This is a bad idea." She stated when they climbed the stairs up to the roof.

"What?" He asked, laughing just a bit at how hesitating she seemed.

Peyton shot him a confused look. Really, he didn't see how this was a bad idea? "We shouldn't be climbing the stairs up to a roof in the middle of the night. I mean, whose roof is this anyway? Did we just break into a building just to see this amazing view over the city? Couldn't we do that from somewhere on a bridge or something?" She explained, rambling maybe a little and causing Lucas to fully laugh now. "What?"

He stopped laughing and gave her a reassuring smile instead. "It's my roof, Peyton. You don't have to worry about breaking in. It's all okay."

"Why didn't you tell me that?" She exclaimed rather loudly, forgetting about the other people in the building for a second.

"I did! Your tipsy state of mind just didn't register it."

She stopped abruptly, making him turn around to face her again. "Hey, I'm not drunk!"

"Didn't say you were." Lucas said, holding his hands up in defense and just not being able to hold in his laughter for too long at the sight of her indignant face. "Come on, it's here." He opened the door and led her onto the roof that gave indeed an amazing view over the city.

She might have been a little tipsy, standing on that roof in the fresh air and seeing that impressive view got her sober in just a second.

"Wow."

"Yeah, I know." He agreed as he stood next to her. "Amazing, huh?"

She nodded and he had to let out a soft chuckle at that awestruck expression on her face. "Unbelievable you live here. You come here often?" Peyton asked as she took a seat on one of the benches on the roof.

Walking closer, he sat himself next to her and stared into the New York night. "Yeah, I come here to write sometimes, you know. The view is kind of inspiring."

"That I can see." She nodded again as she got back up and turned around once more to have a good look of the city. "How's that book of you coming, by the way? I always thought you'd be this great, celebrated author by now, you know."

Shaking his head a bit, he sighed deeply. "I'm working on it. I've been working on it for quite a while now actually, it just misses something, I guess."

"What'd that be?"

Lucas shrugged his shoulders, looking out over the roof. He had been working on his novel for so long now, but he just didn't seem to get it right. He had finished it once. And then he had rewritten it and finished it again. And then he rewrote it again, until he knew he had given it his best writing. Still, it wasn't what he wanted it to be. It still wasn't what he knew it could be. "I don't know. A powerful love story maybe." He said at last and locked eyes with her.

It had been six years since they had first met each other.

It had been a little over four years since she had moved away from Tree Hill, away from their friendship that was always so much more than just a friendship.

Yet, standing on that roof with him, it didn't feel like four years ago. It didn't really feel like high school was over. It only felt like it was just them and they still simply understood each other the same way they had back then.

"Aren't you like, engaged? Doesn't that inspire?" She asked just because she needed to say something, anything. She really needed that crazy feeling in the pit of her stomach to disappear.

"Maybe. Doesn't seem like it does though." Lucas answered, never leaving her eyes as she stood still in the middle of the roof.

When she finally sat down on the bench again, silence settled, leaving them to simply sit there next to each other as they had done so many times years ago.

It actually amazed both of them how they could just sit in silence without it becoming awkward or uncomfortable. It didn't matter that it was only the second time they saw each other in four years. Nor did it matter that he had just kind of admitted, and maybe made Peyton a tad uncomfortable by saying so, that his engagement, his relationship, didn't inspire the way it maybe should be. It simply didn't matter.

"You know… When you're struggling with it, with your writing I mean, just know… Your art matters, Lucas." She said softly after a while, repeating words he had spoken to her so many years ago.

It was as if he had touched her soul that night, and he could feel it now too. Those four simple words seemed to do more to him than any encouraging speech Lindsey had ever given him. It shouldn't be like that, right?

She didn't know how everything happened after that. She had been thinking about it from the moment she woke up the next day, it had been on her mind ever since and she could never really figure it out.

She could never really figure out why.

One moment she simply sat beside him, telling him how his art mattered, the next one, when he leaned in and she felt his lips on hers, she couldn't bring herself to pull away from him.

It wasn't fair, to neither one of them, and they shouldn't have done it, yet she couldn't deny that in that moment it simply was what she wanted.

"We got carried away. It didn't mean anything."

He kept hearing those words in his mind over and over again.

They got carried away, indeed.

He doubted that it hadn't meant anything though.

He knew, however, how they both wished for it not to mean anything.

Looking out over the room where he had spent the night with the girl, woman now, he had once given his heart to, he knew she was right though.

They couldn't do that. It was indeed a mistake and it should've never happened.

And it wasn't fair.

Not to her, not to him. Not to Lindsey or Jake.

Once upon a time, he had promised himself to become a better man.

He had 'made' her the other girl once and cheated on a girl he knew cared for him. And right then, the moment Peyton had walked away from him and he had realized just how much they had hurt Brooke and each other, he had promised himself to become better.

A better person than the person he had been before.

However, only six years later he found himself being that same person he was back then.

Yes, he was older and yes, he knew more about life, but he had once again made her the 'other woman' and had once again cheated on someone he knew loved him.

Someone he loved as well. Because he really did love Lindsey. He didn't doubt his love for Lindsey, neither did he doubt her love for him. However, that hadn't stopped him last night and it wasn't like he loved her now any different than he did yesterday.

He had to become a better man. Not only for himself, but more so for all the people surrounding him.

And so he would. He would be better.

And even though he knew it might not have been exactly true, he needed Peyton's words to be the right ones.

They simply got carried away.

It didn't mean anything.

Only a week later he found her sitting on the steps in front of his building.

When he took a seat next to her, she looked up to him and he was sure he had never seen her that broken before.

"Another art exhibition. They insisted I came." She answered his unspoken question. "I know I shouldn't be here, I just… I don't know, I felt like I needed to come."

"It's okay." Lucas said before silence settled between them.

"I can't face Jake, you know. I don't think I've ever spent so much time at the gallery." She started again after a long while. "I'm a terrible person." Peyton said then softly, causing Lucas to immediately shake his head.

"You're not."

"I am." She insisted with a nod of her head. "I mean, look at me, Lucas, look at us. It isn't the first time, you know? What is it about us? Do we really always have to hurt other people?" She asked, sounding even more broken than she looked. "And it's not just Jake or Lindsey. It's Jenny too. And…"

"Did you tell Jake?" He asked a bit warily.

"No." She answered and shook her head softly. "Maybe I should though. I don't know if I can keep this from him, if I even want to keep it."

She had been thinking about it all week. Should she tell him or should she just keep her mouth shut and forget that it had ever happened?

He trusted her. He had always trusted her, and she had never done anything to make him doubt that trust he had in her. Or so it was until a week ago.

How could she now just move on, knowing that she had violated his trust so badly, even though he technically didn't know it?

She couldn't. She knew she simply couldn't go home again and live her life like she had been doing only seven days ago. She had to tell him. She had to be honest, even though it might not even matter that much anymore.

On the other hand, telling Jake would somehow make it all the more real, and even though she knew it was, she couldn't help wanting it to be just a little less real for just a little while longer.

If it was only her and Lucas who knew, maybe they could just pretend none of it was real? That it was only a dream or something, not the ugly truth that would change her life.

She knew, however, that that wasn't going to happen.

"You want to come in?" Lucas asked, breaking the silence between them.

Was he really asking her to come in after all that had happened? "Lucas, I don't think that's the best idea right now. Maybe I should just…"

"It's cold outside. You've been sitting here for God knows how long. Just come up, drink a cup of coffee and then go." He said and rubbed her arm lightly. A shiver run down her spine and she wasn't really sure whether that had something to do with the cold or with his touch.

He got up and when he held out a hand for her, she couldn't help but taking it and following him inside.

"Peyton, please talk to me." He said after another long silence. Both of them were sitting in Lucas' couch, nursing their cup of coffee. It had been minutes since they had spoken a word and though he knew she somehow needed that silence, he also knew he wouldn't be able to bear it much longer. He wanted her to talk, to fill the empty silence with words, even if those words would hurt.

"What do you want me to say, Lucas? I shouldn't even be here."

"That's not true, you –"

"Of course it is true!" She exclaimed, making him recoil just a little. "I cheated on my husband with you, how do you even justice the fact that I am here now?" Her voice cracked and she stubbornly wiped away a few of her tears.

She didn't want to cry. She hadn't come to cry. She didn't know why she was there, but it certainly wasn't to cry.

It wasn't that simple though.

Saying that you don't want to cry, doesn't exactly mean you won't. Before she knew it, hot wet tears were falling onto her cheeks and there was not all that much she could do to stop them. Another moment later, Lucas had taken her in his arms, slightly rocking her back and forward, knowing she simply needed some comfort, even if it meant he was the one giving her.

"God, Luke, how did everything become like this? How got everything so messed up?" She cried into his chest, seeking for some sort of comfort and hoping he would offer her all the right words, although she knew there simply were no words to make everything all okay again.

"I don't know." He told her honestly. A week ago his life had seemed quite simple. He was engaged, had great friends and a good job. Now, he didn't think it could get more complicated. "Things will be okay again though, you've got to believe that." He tried to soothe her, but didn't really know if he believed his words himself. She looked up at him, the tears in her eyes still shining brightly and he could only nod reassuringly.

He wanted things to be okay again so badly, for him, but most of all for her. The fact that they had met again had brought them both trouble, but that didn't change the fact he still cared for her. Cared quite deeply actually. She had always been important to him, he had always wanted her to be okay. Seeing her in so much pain right now, hurt him way more than being in pain himself.

"Peyton, you are going to be okay, you got that?" Lucas spoke again when she didn't say something herself. She looked up again and briefly locked eyes with him before she softly shook her head.

"I'm a terrible person." She finally said, repeating words she had already said before. "He's going to hate me."

"He won't." He disagreed and now it was him who shook his head. "Are you sure you want to tell him though?" He didn't want to encourage her to keep a secret from her husband, yet he somehow thought that not telling him might not be such a bad idea either.

"Have you seen me? How can I go home now and not tell him? He'll know something is up when he sees me like this. I'm a mess, Lucas."

"You've always been a mess." He stated with a smile, receiving a sad chuckle from Peyton while she wiped away yet another few tears.

Silence settled again between them, Peyton still being in his arms, even though she knew that wasn't such a great idea. What was she thinking actually? Only a week ago, she cheated on her husband with this man, and now she was here again? She knew it was wrong, but she also knew that she needed his comfort in that moment. She needed to be there.

A week ago, she had spoken words she had said years ago as well. We got carried away. It didn't mean anything. She couldn't help but think if it really didn't mean anything?

Why was she here? Why did she seek comfort here? Why wasn't she home in Savannah, where she belonged?

Maybe she simply needed to see him this one more time.

One more time before she moved on and wouldn't look behind anymore.

It didn't mean anything, she had to believe that. It was simply the past catching up on her, on them. She could only move on now and make sure the past didn't have the chance anymore to do so.

Wiping away the last of her tears, she looked up at Lucas once again. "I should get going." She said softly, trying her best to control her shaky voice.

He only nodded. He didn't question things, knowing it probably was best for both of them if she left now. He had to hug her, though. He knew they wouldn't see each other any time soon, he simply knew they both would stay out of the other's life from now on. He also knew that was the right thing to do, but he couldn't let her leave without having her in his arms one last time.

When they let go of each other, they locked eyes and Lucas couldn't think of a moment he had seen more hurt in her eyes than right then. "It's okay." He whispered, not really knowing why, but still feeling the need to do so anyways.

Without much thinking she leaned in, and so did he. Here she was again, kissing a man that wasn't her husband.

If all of this hadn't meant anything, then why was she kissing Lucas again?

She loved Jake though, she knew she did. And she knew he didn't deserve any of this.

Realizing that they simply couldn't do this, she broke their kiss and frantically started searching for her bag.

"Peyton, I'm sorry, I know –"

"I have to go." She interrupted him, needing to get out of his place as soon as possible.

"Peyt, I…" He tried again, but simply didn't find the words to tell her.

"Goodbye, Lucas."

She was out of the door before he could say more, and he knew it would be long before he would see her again.

And those words of her still rang in his head.

We got carried away. It didn't mean anything.

AN: What'd you think of this one? Please, let me know what you think of it! I really don't want to be a nag or something, but reviews kinda dropped for the previous chapter and it got me slightly worried... I really hope you guys still like it! &those reviews totally inspire me too, you know? ;)

Any thoughts on what's going to happen now by the way?

For those of you who are on summer break, I hope you're having a great time! Mine is going amazing (: &for those of you who aren't, well I still hope you're having a great time too!

&don't forget our nice little friend, the review-button! Pretty please?