AN: Some You Give Away. At the 40 min mark I honestly thought this was the best episode ever and it was all going amazingly. And the last 20 mins spawned this. The things I'm feeling after that episode would take too many words to describe. Expect another one based on the same episode probably by this weekend. I may fail my test for school tomorrow but somehow, this silly show has made that seem so irrelevant.
Let's just hope for Luke and Hales and baby Scott and Nate and Peyton and them all... Come on Schwann...
A Fucked up World
It was the best night that had ever existed for any one of the young adults involved in the victory of Tree Hill's state championship.
It was the best night that had ever been imagined for the torn cheerleader who finally got to kiss the love of her life who finally, finally realized he loved her too.
It was the best night for the new parents, proud mother and father of a soon to be baby boy.
Except it wasn't. Except it never could be. Except it was the worst possible night that none of them thought possible.
Lucas didn't take his pills.
Nathan chose morals over safety.
Peyton put herself out there one more time.
The moral are punished. The well intentioned are reprimanded. The daring are beat back.
In the time span of twenty minutes the best night of any one of their lives spiralled into the last hour they would smile again.
Was it stupidity that caused Lucas to forsake his medicine although he had a heart condition?
Or was it some divine entity's idea of a cruel amusement that out of every moment he had formerly pushed himself past human limitations, his heart decided to give out at this moment, here, now?
Was it bad luck that made Peyton confess her feelings just when it was too late to enjoy any form of relationship?
Or was it a joke to warn others to act faster, to grasp what one wants the moment one realizes the desire?
Should Nathan have been punished so harshly for allowing his conscience to guide him where his father's had failed? Should Haley have to die because she loved her husband more than herself?
Are all acts of selflessness crushed and mocked in this world where only the immoral, the cold-hearted, the selfish, the vindictive, and the greedy can succeed? Evil men have money and power and connections. They own intimidation and easily toy with the strings of fate.
What gives them that right? Who decided that the cheaters and liars and self servers are the ones who get the control, the happiness, the good fortune?
Bad things happen to good people. It isn't just an old saying made to comfort those who have suffered. It's a cruelty meant to discourage the good hearted and to deaden the spirit of any who still believe that being right, being true, being pure is better than being popular, or prosperous, or even alive.
They chose their principles. They could have lost their lives. When all is said and actions are done and there is nothing left to hold, to think of, to consider, what is worth it?
At the end of the day, what matters more, the fact that Nathan did the right thing or the fact that his wife is dying? Because it's so fucking clear that he would have sacrificed both his legs, all his senses, and every basketball game in existence if it meant his wife could be smiling at him right now. Who the hell cares if some old man is happy or if some guy goes to college. They would still have been living. But she might not be. And it's all his fault.
Peyton cries at a constant vigil by the bed of her new boyfriend and her always lover. His heart stopped, literally, the same night hers did the same emotionally. Except he made hers stop and it was the best thing that could have happened to her. But people always leave and he's leaving, he's unwell, they say he won't make it. They say he will die, they say they're sorry, they say they've done all they can.
A shit load of meaningless words that she wishes they could just shove up their asses. How is it fair that the first time she got to kiss him honestly was the last night he would kiss anyone ever again? How is it fair that the most decent person she's ever met first had his dream taken from him and now his life is ending just because he tried to keep his dream alive for one second longer?
How can it be right? How can this be the world we live in?
Nathan sits. He can't breathe. He can't stand. He can't do anything but cry, cry, cry.
He thinks. He wishes his brain would shut off and things could just stop all together since they already have for him.
He loves her more than anything but because of his love for basketball, she could have gotten herself killed for him. Nothing matters but her. Nothing has ever mattered more to him than her. And suddenly he wishes that he had never played the fucking sport if it meant this was what would happen as a result of it. Suddenly he prays to God in a mad bargain, willing to do anything in the world if He could just, please, possibly, let Haley live.
It's his fault. It's his fault. It's his fault.
Haley? Because he wouldn't lose. Because he had to win. Because it was the right thing.
Lucas? Lucas loved Haley. Haley goes down. Lucas follows. Because Nathan wouldn't lose. Because he had to win. Because it was the right thing.
And holy fuck, Peyton. Peyton who has stopped sleeping. Peyton who hasn't washed her hair in about two weeks. Peyton who sits there, dead to the world.
Her friendship was mended that night. Her friendship and her love life and her family life. Harmony.
Now she sits, her appearance an outward reflection of the person within. Blackness. Only blackness. Her blonde hair reminded her of hope. There was none of that left in her life. He was her hope. He wasn't awake. He wasn't okay. Her hair turned black. There was no hope.
She is gone. She will not speak. She will not eat. She will do nothing but sit in silence and cry and stare into the nothingness of her soul. She loved him. She loved him and she will not, cannot stop and so the love bites at her savagely.
He is dying and Peyton is going with him. She can't live if he's not there with her.
Nathan watches. Nathan sees. Nathan knows. He broke them up once before, kept them apart because he couldn't stand losing. It was Peyton he wanted to keep, like an object, all those months ago. It was the game, it was his conscience, it was the feelings others held towards him that he wanted to keep this time.
Dan watches. Dan sees. One son is dying literally and the other may just as well be. He didn't help when he had the chance. He didn't pay up. He wasn't there. He failed. And so he killed his brother and so he killed his wife's sanity and so he killed one son's life and the other's will to live at all. Murderer. Failure. Satan himself.
Dan weeps. Dan prays. Dan hates himself and can do nothing. Dan sits in a jail cell for murder and hope to slit his wrists and if Lucas doesn't make it, if Haley doesn't make it, he will have no other choice. How can he live with himself? How?
Peyton sits. Peyton stares. Nathan sits. Nathan stares.
They sat in the same waiting room. Side by side that night they sat. They didn't speak. They didn't touch. They sat. They waited.
They heard. They cried.
And now they sit day by day. Haley and Lucas are in the same room. Nathan and Peyton sit side by side, day by day, in between the beds. They stare. They do not speak. They do not touch.
There is no comfort.
There is no joy.
There is no laughter.
Hope is dead.
The ones they love most are dying.
They are dying.
No one can make them eat much. No one can make them leave. No one can do anything but watch as they watch.
They had to hook Peyton up to an IV the other day. She passed out from lack of nutrients in her blood stream. She would not eat. She no longer feels hunger. There is an encompassing numbness, this pain that feels as if someone has lit her on fire but she cannot burn out. It doesn't eat her up, it scalds her in this constant state of fierce, mind aching, body crippling torture but she does not die. There is nothing that can make her full. There is nothing that can make this better. Why should she care about keeping herself healthy when the only thing worth living for is barely living at all?
They had to sedate Nathan the other day. He punched out two doctors and rammed his fist into a wall when they said enough was enough and said he needed rest- that he had to leave. They tried to pry his hands off of hers. They tried to force him out. His hand is broken. His spirit is dead, why does he need his body?
Go home, they say.
Take a bath, they say.
Eat something, they say.
But they won't. They can't.
Two new bodies in the hospital to be cared for. Two new patients, driven to severe illness due to stress alone. They are dying, too. They are heartsick. They are dying from broken hearts and nothing can cure them. Nothing can be well again.
They feel guilty for laughing that night. They look back at those memories and cringe. The best night of their lives, the best moment in time, the moment that would stay with them always and be cherished.
How could they have ever smiled? How could they have believed it was a wonderful day? How could any of it have happened?
How can the world keep spinning? How can people keep laughing? How can the sun keep rising and the stars keep glittering and life just keeps ticking? How is it possible for anything to be so fucking normal when nothing, not ever, not again is at peace, is okay, is normal?
There is no normal. There is no life.
Lucas is dying and Peyton is dead.
Haley is dying and Nathan is dead.
Those who are dying are joined by those who want to die. They are connected, linked, and all their fates rely directly on the lives of each other.
Live. Live, Lucas. Live, Haley. Live, young Scott. For if you die, the world will shatter and life will never go on again.
How is it fair that those who do good are lying lifeless in beds so sterile?
How is it fair that the world runs in such a fashion as to punish the honest and upstanding and to award the dark and inhuman?
How is it possible, how, how is it possible that they could be dying?
Dan failed. Deb failed. Karen failed.
Karen will have no one. No family. No one.
Larry will never see his daughter, his real daughter, again.
Nathan can't breathe.
Peyton won't eat.
He stares at his wife. He stares and he prays and he begs her every day to live.
He threatened the doctors. He got the very best ones to fly in. He cried and he bribed and he tried.
Now he ignores them all.
She stares at her love. She stares and she prays and she begs him everyday to live.
She screamed when they told her what had happened. She cursed and she insulted and she demanded and she sobbed when they told her she couldn't go in because she wasn't family. He was more a part of her than her fucking arm was.
He speaks to no one. She speaks to no one. If the doctors have no good news, they are not heard. If the friends try to bring comfort or offer anything at all, they are not heard.
Alone in their misery.
Side by side they sit. They do not look at each other. They do not speak. They sit. They pray. They stare.
The only ones they speak to are their loves. Fuck the world.
Fuck morals and conscience and right and wrong.
Love will kill them because love was what made their life worth living.
Bad people get ahead. The world punishes the good.
They weep. They stare. They can do nothing.
Love can heal. Love can save. Love can survive anything.
But they can't. Not Nathan, not Peyton. If he dies, if she dies, they die with them.
They died on the best day of their lives.
There is nothing.
There will never be anything again.
Bad timing? A jilted world? An unjust God?
No one can answer. No one can tell them why.
It's his fault.
Blame.
Regret.
All encompassing pain.
How can it hurt this much?
How can this be happening?
How can anything go on like it once did?
I Love You was a death sentence.
They stare. They do not speak. They do not eat. They will not leave.
They love. They will always love.
They will not survive.