A/N: Hi! Here comes chapter 10. I know many of you've been very frustrated with me for not telling how Ellie came to be earlier and I said I'd wait until P tells the story to Lucas, but well I changed my mind about it. Anyway, thank you OTHGirl24, Mela18, AaBb, A-Scrape1010 and EmmaJoie for your reviews of last chapter. Enjoy chapter 10!

Disclaimer: The characters come from amazing Mark Schwahn's One Tree Hill, lyrics are from Kelly Clarkson's song Long Shot, which can be found on her All I Ever Wanted album.

-two and half weeks later at Red Bedroom records-

"I felt it/ The wire touched my neck and/ Then someone pulled it tighter/ I never saw it coming..."

"Thank God you're here!" Haley almost screamed through the blasting music as Nathan and Jamie walked into the office.

"...So now I'll take a chance on/ This thing we may have started/ Intentional or not I/ Don't think we saw it coming/ It's all adding up to something/ That asks for some involvement/ That asks for our commitment/ I think I see it coming/ If we step out of that limb..."

"What's going on in here?" Nathan asked confused as Haley went to turn down the volume of their stereos.

"It's a long shot but I say why not/ If I say forget it I know that I'll regret it/ It's a long shot just to beat these odds/ The chance is we won't make it/ But I know if I don't take it/ There's no chance/ Cause you're the best I got/ So take the long shot..."

"Whew, yeah, thanks for coming. I say it's a pretty great deal for me that I get to spend the afternoon with my favorite boy, And I get out of this madhouse for a while." Haley grinned and took Jamie into her lap. "As for what's going on here, one miss Sawyer has been listening to Kelly Clarkson's Long Shot all the time during these past two and half weeks. I call it her lyric therapy, but this time this is driving me crazy. The only times I know it hasn't been on are when she's out and when she sleeps. And days like these, when Ellie's with a babysitter, she blasts it out really loud, says she needs it for concentration.."

Nathan was just about to comment, when Peyton walked in from the bathroom, not noticing the visiting Scotts.

"Haley, please keep the music on louder, I really need it and you're leaving like about now anyway." Peyton whined and then noticed Nathan and Jamie. "Oh, hi!" she added a little embarrassed. "Never mind."

"Yeah, so I think I'm going to take off with this handsome guy. Or what do you say James?" Haley winked at the boy. In the past two and half weeks Jamie had gotten to hang out many times with his new best friend. The adults had found it most convenient that Nathan didn't tag along. This afternoon the plan was for Haley and Jamie to go do some birthday shopping while Nathan would get to hang out alone with Peyton.

"Totally," Jamie grinned and hopped off of Haley's lap to hug his father and aunt Peyton good-bye.

"Alright, so what's going on, sis?" Nathan asked confused and worried. "Apart from the two date-time Ellie's baby-sittings we haven't really had the chance to talk in a while."

Peyton let out a dry chuckle and turned her stereos. "If you're asking about the song, that's just me. I'm a little lunatic, you know."

Nathan didn't find much humor in her words. "Peyton, really? What's up? Is it my brother? Because if he's done something, I can totally take care of him. He maybe more biologically related, but if he's being an idiot I'm totally on your side, don't worry."

"No, Lucas has been nothing but sweet to me." A small blush rose on Peyton's cheeks. "We've been on five dates now if you count Mia and Chase's wedding and no one has ever treated me with such respect and gentleness, like I'm a real lady or a princess or something."

"Okay, good. So if it's not him, what else has happened in the last few weeks? You know, if you need me to, I can totally beat someone else up, too." Nathan winked causing Peyton to chuckle.

"Well, in that case you should probably beat me up."

Nathan raised his eyebrows at her comment to signal he needed an explanation.

"See, it's not him, it's me but well, it's got to do with him." Peyton paused "See, I really like him."

Nathan waited a little bit for the problem and then couldn't help but laugh when he realized she had already said it. "Um, call me old fashioned, but shouldn't that be a good thing, considering you are dating him?"

Peyton smiled at him sheepishly. "Yeah, but this is me we're talking about..."

"So?"

"Anyway, the answer to your original question is that we have three rules in our dating. One of our rules is failing me right now and I'm trying to deal with that. My way of dealing with things is through music. Hence, the blasting music you walked in on in the beginning." Peyton ranted switching the subject a little bit.

"Rules, huh?" Nathan asked intrigued, "What kind of rules?"

"Oh, you know, the basics: it's just between us - Ellie and others at risk will be kept out of it, nothing too intimate and no song lyrics." Peyton stated the obvious.

"No song lyrics?" Nathan didn't find the list quite as obvious.

"You know this lyric therapy thing of mine goes two ways. Controlled by me, songs can make things better for me. Like right now Kelly Clarkson's Long Shot just understands and encourages me to keep at somewhat positive. But song lyrics can manipulate my feelings better than anything and therefore if he starts quoting song lyrics to me, that can be fatal."

"So basically, all you asked for was for him to not make you fall in love with him, right?" Peyton looked at her feet and was quiet. "Right?" Then she finally nodded a little.

"Call me old fashioned, but doesn't that make dating kind of pointless?"

Peyton was getting a little annoyed by Nathan's truthfulness. So she decided to change the subject back to the original again. "Anyway, as I was saying. Rule number one is failing this weekend and it is the most important one of my rules. I just don't know what to do about it."

"Ellie?"

"Yes, Ellie. And Jamie, too. It's your son's fourth birthday party and since he's your son's uncle I assume he's bound to meet Ellie. This is all falling apart, don't you see?"

"Lucas has been nothing but a great uncle to Jamie throughout these four years. I'm quite sure Ellie will be fine meeting him." Nathan tried to reassure her.

"I know. And that is exactly the problem."

"Okay, now you lost me, Sawyer. What's the problem in there not being a problem?" Peyton's logic had gotten way too complicated for Nathan.

"I know I'm playing with fire getting by dating him. I know it'll hurt like hell when he leaves, but there's something about him why I can't not date him." Peyton explained desperation in her voice. "The rule is there to protect Ellie. It's one thing that I'll end up hurting because of my weird fascination in him, but I can't let Ellie go through the pain, too."

"Okay, I guess that makes sense. Except he hasn't mentioned anything to me about leaving... Where's he leaving to? And when?"

"I don't know, sometime, anywhere..." Peyton cried out.

"So he's leaving, but I don't know anything about it and you don't know any details about it? What should we think of that? What's he even leaving for?" Something just did not quite add up right.

"Because of me, okay? People always leave. Look at everyone I've gotten close to: My biological parents left me for adoption, my adoptive parents died before I could form any memories about them, by the time I was 15 I had had ten foster parents. Then my biological mom Ellie came back to my life and wanted to start all over with me. I thought maybe some people came back, too. And yes, it was great for the two years until she succumbed to breast cancer." Peyton chuckled very dryly. "People always leave, sometimes they leave twice, right?"

Nathan was speechless. He had known some parts of Peyton's story, but never known how tough it really had been for her.

"Not to mention the boys in my life. I've had three boyfriends. First of them fled from my life shortly after the first proper date, the second one got me to give up my virginity and then laughed at me the next day and went after the captain of the cheerleading squad. And well the third was John, who charmed me with music and music industry, but all he saw was a naive assistant to his assistant and well, in the end he left me without the job, too. Then there's the only one night stand I've ever had. He, whoever the hell he was, left me in my hotel room sometime during that night and left Ellie to grow inside of me, never able to know her father. So my history is definitely supporting my prediction that he's leaving soon."

"Peyton..." It had been a long time since he last had to comfort a woman so he was searching for the right words.

Tears were falling down her cheeks and she reached out to a drawer of her desk to get some napkins. "I'm sorry I got like this." she apologized.

"No, don't be. It's alright. Come here." he motioned to the spot next to him on the couch he was sitting.

No matter how she tried to stop them tears were streaming down her face as Peyton slowly walked next to Nathan and buried her head in his lap.

"It's gonna be alright, you know. You're way too wonderful for it not to. Not everyone leaves. I'm here, so are Haley, Ellie, contrary to what you're telling yourself Lucas hasn't left you in anyway and then there's Mia and Chase, Vivian and all the crazy ladies in the single parents' group. Though I kind of have to admit sometimes I wouldn't mind if they at least left me in peace for a while." Peyton wiped off tears from her eyes and couldn't help but chuckle "As for my brother, you can be sure he's not going to stay alive if he screws up with you somehow."

Peyton smiled at him. It felt good to have someone being so protective of her. She had never really had that before. "Thanks Nate. You're a good man." They were quiet for a moment "What am I gonna do about Jamie's birthday?"

"You're gonna come to the party with Ellie and stop worrying about Lucas and I'm gonna have a talk with Lucas. It'll be alright."

Haley and Jamie had had a very productive birthday shopping day. Although she hadn't really talked with Nathan, Haley had gotten the impression that Jamie's mother had done most of shopping in the family and Nathan was rather uncomfortable with the kind of shopping a four-year-old needed. So she took the boy to pick out the makings of a great birthday party. They had balloons, cotton candy and all kinds of fun stuff to do on Saturday.

Haley knew she was a little crazy to be so attentive in a family she did not belong to. But as much as she would have liked one, she did not have a family of her own to contribute to. She felt like the little boy had been give for her to do her best to his well being. Considering her underlying feelings for Jamie's dad and his flaky demeanor towards her, chances were she was going to get hurt at some point. But what Haley felt for James Lucas Scott was too overwhelming for her to care about that. She had just pushed her crush for Nathan Scott out of the way and decided to focus fully on Jamie instead.

"Alright, buddy. I think we're almost done. There's just one thing left." Haley grinned at the boy.

"What is that?" Jamie asked. He was already very satisfied with what they had gotten, but it was still very exciting to just spend time with Haley in the shopping mall.

"The present. What do you want?"

Jamie did not react as Haley would have expected. He looked at his feet like he was embarrassed.

"Jamie, honey. A birthday present is a fun thing. If you could have anything in the entire world, what would you want?"

Jamie mumbled something so quietly that she had no idea what he had said.

"Sorry, I did not hear that properly. I'll tell you what. Let's go sit over there on that bench, you can whisper it to my ear and if I can ever get that for you I'll do my best to do it." She could see a tiny glint of hope light up in the boys eyes and although she loved to see it there it also scared her a little bit. She prayed to God she'd be able to live up to her promises.

They sat down on the bench and Jamie looked at Haley face full of vulnerability and trust and then whispered into her ear "I want mama. I want daddy to be happy."

A/N: What do you think? There are a few things that need to happen before the actual birthday party, but we'll either get to the party already in next chapter or then the one after that. I have vague visions for some of the near future's happenings and an idea of where we should get and at what pace, but your opinions and ideas could make a difference in the exact turn out of the next few chapters. So please let me know what your thoughts are about the story and the situations Haley, Nathan, Jamie, Peyton, Lucas and Ellie are in.