The next day was filled with more than anyone could have thought, with Lisa coming to drop off Sawyer and do some last minute checks around the house. She also met Karen, who assured the woman that she was making the right decision by giving Sawyer back to her birth parents.

Larry Sawyer, however hadn't made his way back into the picture yet, and try as she might, Peyton wasn't able to get ahold of him since he left. Karen explained that he still needed that time, and as soon as he saw the little girl, he would understand everything that the two went through. She also mentioned that she liked all the time she got with her as a result anyway, which made all of them smile.

Later that evening, Karen left, having to get back to Lily, who was being watched by a neighbor, and the whole group was exhausted, including little Sawyer. Lucas insisted that Peyton get some sleep, but was still wide awake for a while before going to bed beside her.

A few hours later, Peyton was awoken by the sound of a baby crying, and knowing it wasn't Jamie, she made her way through the kitchen and living room to the nursery. It was like the instant the baby was in her arms again, she was able to step into that mother role seamlessly.

Sawyer was sitting up in her new crib with tears in her eyes, and seeing Peyton her outstretched arms searched for comfort.

"Oh no, what's wrong baby girl?"

"Mama." She says, clear as day, causing Peyton to stiffen for a moment. That hadn't happened before, and Peyton wondered for a moment if she was thinking of her or Joanne Baley. The moment was short lived when the little girl in her arms whispered the endearment again before slumping her head down on Peyton's shoulder.

Having plenty of practice with Jamie, she changed Sawyer's diaper as Sawyer looked up at her mother through sleepy eyes.

After getting her sleep suit back on, she cuddled her close, taking her out of the room and into the living room, moving towards the window to look out at the night sky, "It has been a very long day Sawyer Elizabeth, and you need to get to sleep. You can't be waking up your cousin in the middle of the night, because he needs his sleep to." She says, shifting the baby so she could see her face for a moment, noting the glassy, droopy eyes. "I'm sure that there is a song to sing, but you'll have to give me a couple weeks to get used to this whole mom thing. Mommy and Daddy have always loved you and have always thought of you, but we haven't gotten to be with you since you were just a tiny little bundle. But now you're here, and we're going to be here for you and love you and take care of you… we just have to learn how."

"You're already doing a great job." A familiar voice whispers from the couch, causing Peyton to turn in her spot and smile.

"When did you get here?"

"Lucas let me in tonight. Apparently you and everyone else fell right asleep, but he couldn't stop thinking."

"I swear he didn't sleep for a month after we found out I was pregnant. He was so worried about me, and he would sneak over in the middle of the night just to make sure that I was okay and that I had everything that I needed."

"I don't think I want to know about Lucas Scott sneaking over in the middle of the night."

"Dad, he is a good man, you know that."

"Peyton, that boy has been the only boy in your life that I have trusted you with. He has pulled you through so many things and I will always be grateful for him. However he did get you pregnant at sixteen."

"And you need to understand that he was there for me. He didn't once even consider stepping out on me, and he was with me for every doctor's appointment. I wouldn't have even been able to deliver her if he hadn't been with me that day in the delivery room. God…" she starts, looking down at the baby she held, and rubbing her back, "I thought that I couldn't do it, and Lucas talked me through it and held my hand. And when the Baleys came back in to let us hold her, he cried with me and he helped me give her away to them."

"I know… and he told me that he couldn't have gotten through any of this without you, so I'm pretty sure that the two of you are made for each other." He says, laughing softly and then taking in the sight of his daughter with a baby on her shoulder, a soothing hand on the infant's back. "Peyton, I'm sorry that I walked out."

"I understand."

"You shouldn't have to. I needed to process everything though. If you had told us you were pregnant, then it would have been a totally different story, but you told us that you hid a pregnancy from us and that we had a granddaughter out there that we didn't even know about."

"We only did it to protect you and ourselves… it was selfish."

"What you and Lucas chose to do was anything but selfish, Peyton. You gave her a chance. That family must have loved that little girl like no other. I know that is exactly how your mom and I felt the day we got you. And I know what it meant for Ellie to have that time with you again."

She waits for a minute, rocking in her spot as she felt the soft breathing of her daughter hit her neck in such a sweet whisper. "So… do you think that we can do this?"

"Yes." He says, without hesitation.

"Well, that's pretty convincing coming from the parent who walked out the second we said something." She says with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

"Peyton, again… you've got to understand how big of a shock that was. No matter how old you get, you are always going to be my little girl, and the thought of you having your own so young just threw me for a loop. If this happened to Sawyer, how would you react?"

"Well, it isn't going to happen to her, because Lucas is probably going to lock her in her room until she's thirty."

Larry laughs, knowing that the boy would try to do just that, already seeing the beauty of his own daughter in his little granddaughter. "And there you see why I reacted how I did. I thought that you were more responsible than that, so initially I was angry that you had gotten yourself pregnant in the first place. But then I realized that you were responsible in the way you and Lucas handled everything, minus the whole not telling us thing. I had to think it through."

"And?"

"She's beautiful, Peyton. She is absolutely beautiful, and the spitting image of you when you were a baby. You've got a good set up here, and I think that the little girl you've got right there is going to be one loved baby."

She looked at her father with eyes shining, "Thanks dad."

"Now, you should probably put her back down and try to get some sleep. It's probably going to take her some time to get used to everything, so I'm sure that sleep will be few and far between for the next few weeks."

"You're probably right…"

"Night Peyton."

"Goodnight Dad." She says, carefully walking back through the living room and into the nursery to put her daughter down again.

When she got back in bed, Lucas curled into her just a bit, causing her to smile. "Did you see your dad?"

"Yeah. Sawyer woke up and needed some love and a diaper change."

"I'll get her next time okay?"

"No, I've got it… don't worry."

"Peyton, if we're going to do this, we've got to be together. You need sleep just as much as I do."

She turns to him, kissing him square on the lips before pulling back and giving him a smile that communicated her happiness, "You know I love you, don't you?"

"I do." He says, pulling her close to him, letting her head fall to his chest. "I also called Brooke today… she's going to be here next weekend."

"Brooke!" Peyton says, sitting up in bed.

"She's your best friend, Peyton, she needs to know what's going on."

"I know that… I was just avoiding the whole issue."

"You don't think that she'll notice a kid around if she ever comes and visits?"

"No, it's not that, I just don't know how to tell her that. With Haley it was like telling my friend about what happened. Haley and I are close, but Brooke and I have been friends since elementary school. We're more sisters than anything…" she says, with a far off look on her face trying to imagine how this conversation was going to go. "What did you tell her?"

"I told her that we hadn't seen her in a while and that we had some things that we needed to talk to her about."

"Great."

"What?"

"Lucas, Brooke Davis is not one to sit idly by with the phrase 'we need to talk', she's going to know that it's something big. And the fact that it was you who called and not me is really going to tip her off."

He shrugs his shoulders before assuring her that it was all going to be okay and trying to get her to relax, which she did for a few hours before their daughter decided that sleeping was not an option.

"I'm going." Lucas says as Peyton sits up in bed.

"Luke, you can sleep, I've got her."

"What did I tell you?"

She lays back down thinking about their earlier conversation about the same topic and watches him walk out of the bedroom and down the hallway.

It isn't surprising just a few minutes later when he comes in with a sleepy Sawyer in his arms and lays down with the little girl on his chest. She lifts her head, checking her surroundings for a moment and sets her sights on Peyton nearly instantly, "Mama."

Peyton smiles and reaches out to take the baby off Lucas, hugging her close. "When did she start that?"

"Earlier, when I got her, she said it, but I thought that she was just wanting that person to come and comfort her. But this time she knew it was me…"

"Well that's totally unfair!" he says, playing it out like he is hurt at the fact that she was being called mom before he was dad.

"Hey, who carried her for nine months?" Peyton says back at him with a raised eyebrow.

"You guys are so lucky that you can always throw that in our faces…" he says, laughing while letting Sawyer curl her hand around his large fingers.

After a while, the baby fell asleep and they moved her between them, figuring that if she woke up again, she would at least be with them. That was the last time she woke up that evening, and as they would come to find out, it was the last time for a while that she would wake up in the middle of the night.

When Larry Sawyer got up that morning, early as usual, he figured that he should get on his way and leave them to getting into their routines without someone around. He didn't want Peyton to worry, so he snuck into her bedroom, which brought an instant smile to his face.

Sawyer had woken up and decided that Peyton and Lucas shouldn't be sleeping any more, so all he could here was the babbling of the little girl with an occasional "Mama" thrown in. Glancing in at the new family, he could see the happiness on his daughter's eyes and the joy in the eyes of his soon to be son in law. He knew then that they were going to be okay in the end.

"Peyton?" he says, not wanting to interrupt their time, but wanting to make sure he said goodbye.

She looks up at him smiling, "Hey, dad… we didn't wake you up did we?"

"Curse of a sailor, honey. I'm up at the first light. But I was going to head out, so I wanted to make sure that you didn't think I totally ran out on you guys again."

"Well if you're leaving then you should probably get to say goodbye to your granddaughter." She says, picking Sawyer up and crossing to stand in front of her father.

He takes the girl in his arms and she regards him with a look of confusion, which he matches, causing her to smile. "Well hello there Sawyer! I'm your grandpa Larry."

Sawyer found this funny, which in turn made the adults grin in amusement as well.

Larry left, and then with Brooke's arrival looming over their heads, Peyton was a bit on edge. Sawyer was an absolute angel, and except for a few nights of restlessness, she fit into their lives almost seamlessly. Karen told Peyton that she was a natural, and that she and Lucas were just meant to be parents. While Peyton still didn't completely have confidence in her abilities, she appreciated the sentiment.

That Saturday, Brooke was flying in sometime in the afternoon, so they figured it would be during Sawyer's nap time, which was a great time to talk.

However, Brooke Davis was never one to have an expected entrance, so when she walked through the door that morning as Haley and Peyton were crawling around the floor with Sawyer and Jamie, the two weren't completely shocked.

The shock came when Brooke picked up the little girl in one swoop, sat down with her on the couch and said that she needed some time to bond with her Goddaughter.

"What?" Peyton says, not registering anything that happened in the few minutes that Brooke had been in the house.

"Well I assume that since she's your kid and I'm your best friend, that I get godmother rights. I mean, Haley is the real Aunt, so I should get something." Brooke says with a shrug of her shoulders, tickling the little girl for a laugh.

"So Lucas told you?"

"Lucas didn't tell me anything. He said that you guys had something to tell me, and I figured that it had something to do with the baby, so… here I am."

"Wait, you told Brooke, but you didn't tell me?" Haley says, turning to Peyton with a hurt look on her face.

"I didn't tell Brooke anything." Peyton says, still totally confused.

"She didn't." Brooke confirms and is met with two very pointed glances communicating to her that she needed to explain herself. "Graduation day. That family that came by to see you. I have been your best friend for years and I never knew of them, which I would have if they were so in tight with your dad and you. Then when he said that she was adopted, you had this look on your face, you and Luke, so I figured that she had to have been yours. At least I suspected in the moment, but then suddenly everything made all the sense in the world from the year before. Junior year with Lucas being all papa bear protective of you, the flowy shirts that you thought were in season, freaking out when you found out Haley was pregnant senior year… and you and Lucas."

"What about me and Lucas."

"You guys were all mushy gushy Junior year. But it was cutesy high school stuff. And then we came back from the summer and it was like the two of you had been married for years. You weren't mushy gushy in a stupid way like most high schoolers were, you guys just fit together. It just all made sense, and I figured that it would all come out eventually."

"B. Davis, you never cease to amaze me."

"Hey, this bod may make me look like a ditz, but the brain is always working. Especially with juicy stuff like teen pregnancy and love triangles."

Peyton scrunches her nose then, a bit worried, "Are you mad?"

She sighs while watching Sawyer play with the bracelets on her left arm before answering, "I was once I figured it out, and then I realized that it wasn't something that you wanted everyone to know about. I knew that in time it would come out if it needed to. Like now, apparently."

"Yeah…" Peyton says with a clouded look on her features.

"What happened?"

"They died in a car accident, but they had it written that if anything were to happen to them, that she should be with us."

Brooke nods, searching her best friend's eyes for a reaction to the words she just spoke, "and that is the most wonderful and most frightening thing that could have happened?"

Peyton nods before Haley puts a hand on her shoulder and Brooke fills Peyton in on the meaning behind the gesture, "You don't have to be scared P. Sawyer. You and Luke are not alone in any of this because Haley and Nathan, and I are going to be there for you guys. Every step of the way if we have to be."

She looks from her best friend, down to her daughter, and then over to Haley, "I know…"

And so it began…

--

Okay, this was a short chapter, but I wanted to bring Brooke in and I also wanted to clear up the Larry stuff. Hopefully you enjoyed it… Now the last chapter will be an epilogue, nice and short, so there you have it!!!

Read and Review!!